


The Road to Ruin and We’ve Started at the End

by minthalo



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hitchhiker Keith, Hitchhiking, Langst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Road Trips, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-05 11:01:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16366619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minthalo/pseuds/minthalo
Summary: Lance looks around his bedroom, the walls littered with posters of his favorite bands and movies, photos of him and his friends, him and his family. Pictures of him and Marco framed on his bedside table and on his desk.He can’t stand to look at it anymore.Lance stands up, taking his wallet and car keys off his bedside table and walks out of his bedroom, out of the house all together.He gets inside his car and drives. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but he knows he can’t stay there.Lance is running. Keith is too. Together they take a drive across the country, until they can’t anymore, forced to face their problems head on.





	1. Saturday, June 23rd - Morning and Day

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this fic has been FOREVER in the making, I've been writing this since the beginning of April, and I’m so happy I’m finally ready to post the first chapter!  
> I know that Veronica and Lance’s age gap isn’t the same and that Luis and Veronica aren’t twins and that there is a third sister but for the sake of this fic this is how it’s going to be because I started writing this pre season 6 
> 
> For the timeline of this fic:  
> Marco passes away on Thursday June 21st 2018.  
> Funeral is Friday June 22.  
> Lance leaves at 12:30am, Saturday June 23rd.
> 
> I hope you all really like this fic because i busted my ass writing it.
> 
> Title taken from [“Alone Together”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=996nDRrFa64) by Fall Out Boy

Lance sits at the edge of his bed, staring blankly out his window. His face is red and puffy from crying, his head pounding from behind his eyes. His throat hurts from sobbing, he doesn’t think he could talk at all, his mouth is so dry. He feels as if he needs to cry again, but he doesn't have anymore tears in him. His heart feels like it’s been ripped out of his chest. His world is ending and he doesn’t know how to stop it.

His mother is crying in the room over, he can hear it. She’s trying to muffle her sobs, his Abuelita is in the room with her, he can hear her calming voice attempting to sooth her. It’s not working. Nothing is.

A few rooms down the twins, Veronica and Luis, are asleep, as they should be. They cried themselves to sleep, Lance knows they did, the tear stains under both their eyes gave it away.

They’re in the same bed, in Veronica’s bedroom. They haven’t slept like that since they were children back when they shared a room, now at fifteen years old they’re doing it once again. Lance is supposed to be asleep as well.

But how can one sleep after burying their older brother.

Marco was everything to him. Being four years older than him his brother was his whole world, his hero, and now he’s gone.

Lance doesn’t know how to go on without him. His brother was his rock, encouraging him to follow his dreams, defending him from bullies when he was in grade school. He was his stability, keeping him calm when he got too worked up.

What is he supposed to do without him?

A car crash that lasted moments killed the twenty four year old in seconds. Twenty four years he lived and a thirty second car crash put an end to everything.

The sobs have stopped now, his mother is asleep, she’s tired herself out, it’s been a hard day, for all of them.

His Abuelita has gone to her own room now, he heard her footsteps a few minutes ago. She’s asleep as well. Lance can always tell when he’s the last one awake in the house.

Normally this is a huge relief, normally he loves being the last one awake. It clears his thoughts and makes him feel free. This day has been anything but normal for Lance. He doesn’t feel free now. His body feels numb the same time it feels like he feels too much of everything all at once. He feels trapped in his own skin, his own room, his own house, his own town, his own state.

Lance looks around his bedroom, the walls littered with posters of his favorite bands and movies, photos of him and his friends, him and his family. Pictures of him and Marco framed on his bedside table and on his desk.

He can’t stand to look at it anymore.

Lance stands up, taking his wallet and car keys off his bedside table and walks out of his bedroom, out of the house all together.

He gets inside his car and drives. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but he knows he can’t stay there.

 

It’s past midnight, this is a bad idea, Lance knows this is a bad idea. He needs to be there for his family, the twins will need him to be like how Marco was for him, but he can’t. It’s too much for him.

He leaves his home in Tampa and takes I 75 North and drives, going with the flow. He doesn’t know how long he’ll be gone, but he’s not going back any time soon. He doesn’t look at the time, he doesn’t follow directions, he just drives. He’s got half a tank of gas in his car and a need to run away without looking back.

His phone is in the cupholder, completely disregarded. He forgets it’s even there until he’s been almost two hours on the road. He’s driving mindlessly on I-10 when it starts buzzing, rattling around in the cupholder. He takes a glance and sees it’s his mother.

Reality comes crashing down and he almost hits the breaks on his car in the middle of the freeway. He’s lucky it’s the middle of the night, or else it could have ended catastrophic. He blinks a few times, forcing himself to look back on the road and maintain the speed he’s been going the whole way.

He takes a breath and tries to ignore the incessant buzzing coming from his phone hitting the cup holder, amplifying the sound.

He should turn back.

He doesn't.

He picks up the phone and throws it in the backseat, it his the floor and continues it’s buzzing. He turns on the radio to drown the sound out, finding a station with loud songs that he knows, ones he can scream along to until his face is red, his voice is sore and he can forget about his family.

He passes hour four when the gas light in his car turns on, alerting Lance that if he doesn’t get gas soon he’ll be stranded on the side of the road.

He takes the next exit out of there and drives around looking for a gas station. He refuses to look at his phone for directions to a gas station, he doesn’t want to look at all the messages from his family.

He finds himself in a city called Midway. It’s a nice place at the top of Florida, far from home. It’s quiet, it’s four in the morning, it should be quiet. The lack of noise makes him feel uneasy.

Lance didn’t expect to get this far, his family is probably worried sick, he should turn back.

He won’t.

Lance drives into the first twenty four hour gas station he sees and pulls up to an open pump. He steps out and goes inside the mini mart to pay for the gas. There isn’t anyone in the shop besides Lance and a tired cashier.

He passes through the isles and heads straight for the fridge, opening the door to grab a water. He pulls two out of the fridge, he’s thirsty now and doesn’t know when he’ll stop again. However far a full tank of gas will take him is when he’ll stop again, he doesn’t know when that will be.

He walks through the snack aisle to get to the cashier when he spots a pack of hostess chocolate covered donuts and stops dead in his tracks.

 

_“Lance come on! It’s only another block or so.” Marco pulls at his brother’s arm, dragging him on the sidewalk._

_Lance groans and leans into his brothers side. “It’s too faaarrrr, is getting these snacks even worth it?”_

_“Yes! It totally is! Mom says we’re having a movie night, but if we want snacks that we don’t have in the house we have to go out and buy them ourselves, and I want my donuts.”_

_Lance huffs, “Only if you buy me a grape soda.”_

_Marco throws his arm across his brother’s shoulders. “Of course, Lancey Lance. Now look, we just have to cross the street, get the stuff, and go home.”_

_Lance nods and they hold hands when they cross the street. They don’t have to, Lance is old enough to cross the road by himself at eleven years old, but the fifteen year old is protective of his brother, and still deems it too dangerous._

_They get inside the 7-eleven and split up, going around the store and picking up what each of them would like. Lance grabs things he wants as well as he knows the twins will like, they’re still young but he knows they love m &ms. _

_Marco grabs multiple packs of hostess brand chocolate covered donuts as well as a bag of salt and vinegar chips for his mother._

_Lance comes up to him with all the snacks he wants and looks at Marco’s arms. “Do you really need that many packs of donuts for the movie?”_

_He shakes his head, “no, but I’m going to hide a few in my room, snacks for later. You know they’re my favorite, and it’s buy two get one free. Don’t tell mom, okay?”_

_Lance just smiles. “Okay, I won’t tell mom, but make sure to keep the packs closed, or you’ll get ants in your room and mom will really be mad about it.”_

_Marco grins back. “You’re the best little brother. I love you.”_

 

Lance shakes his head back to reality. The sight of the donuts makes him feel sick. He rushes to the counter paying for the gas and the two waters before running outside and throwing up in the trash can.

It’s mostly dry heaving and bit of bile coming up. He hasn’t eaten anything for over twelve hours, but he isn’t hungry.

He rinses out his mouth with the water he just bought and pumps the gas he paid for into his car until it’s full.

He picks his phone up from the backseat, it’s dead now. Lance has a charger, but he doesn’t want to turn it on just yet. He doesn’t want to know what his family has sent him. He’s ashamed that he left them, but he’s not ready to go back.

He sets it back in the cupholder, next to the water bottle. He checks the clock in his car, it’s 4:40 am but Lance isn’t tired. He still feels antsy, he needs to leave.

He finishes up at the gas station and drives away, turning the radio off and driving in silence. He gets back on US-231 and drives until he’s out of the state, hoping that maybe then he’ll feel better.

An hour and twenty minutes away from the gas station and three minutes past the “Welcome to Alabama” sign and he does not feel better. He doesn’t feel any worse, but he doesn’t feel better.

Leaving the state lifts something off of his shoulders, but the guilt of leaving his family presses down harder.

He ignores it, pushing the feeling as far away as he can. It’s six in the morning now, but time means nothing to Lance. He just keeps driving, not sure where to go. He thinks about going north, he’s never been up north, part of him wishes it was winter, so he could see snow, however it’s mid June, snow is a long ways away.

He continues north, further into Alabama. He’s going eighty miles per hour in the left lane, traffic will start soon, people will be on their way to work, going about their own lives, but for now Lance is one of a few cars on the road.

 

He’s twenty five minutes into the state, with many more cars on the freeway with him. The signs he passes tell him he’s still on US 231 when he sees a young man with dark black hair and a bandana covering his mouth standing on the side of the road with his thumb in the air.

He shouldn’t, this is a bad idea. He’s a stranger, could be a murderer, he could attack Lance, steal what he has and leave him on the side of the road to die. Lance has heard horror stories about hitchhikers, every logical part of him is screaming for him to pass this stranger by.

Lance pulls over.

“Where’re you headed?” It’s the first thing Lance has said out loud since giving his eulogy for his brother over twelve hours ago.

His voice doesn’t even sound like his own.

“West.” says The Hitchhiker, short and stiff.

Lance tips his head towards the passenger seat. “I can do west.” It’s not what he was planning, but it’ll get him far away from Florida, and that’s what he needs.

The Hitchhiker nods and walks around, getting in the passenger seat. He has a backpack of stuff, placing it between his feet on the floor of the car. He pulls the bandana down, showing the rest of his face. He looks no more than a year older than Lance.

Lance turns the radio on, with another person in the car the silence is deafening, and he hates it. He merges back onto the highway and uses nothing but the signs to navigate. His phone stays dead in the cupholder, he has no interest in turning it on. He can find his way around without it.

The Hitchhiker doesn’t say any protest to the lack of technology, in fact he doesn’t say anything at all. He hasn’t said how far west he wants to go, where he’s going, what he’s doing. Lance doesn’t mind it, another person in the car brings him a sense of reality, he’s not used to being alone.

Lance has never been to the west coast, he’d like to see the ocean there, see how different it is from the Pacific, or the Gulf of Mexico that borders his home.

“How far west are we going?” Lance asks after a few minutes

“Southern California.”

“Coast?”

“Yeah.” He grunts.

Lance hums and they fall back into silence, neither willing to put up a conversation. The Hitchhiker pulls the fingerless gloves off his hands and places them in a small pocket in the front of his bag.

He checks the phone that’s in the same pocket, messages from several different people light up the screen, multiple coming in at once.

Out of the corner of his eye Lance watches The Hitchhiker hold down the power button, turning the phone off, ignoring every message. He puts his phone away in his bag, zipping it up and setting it back on the floor before turning to look out the window.

They’re both running from something.

Logically a quicker way west would be to go back down to Florida and drive through the states bordering Mexico, but Lance avoids that route like the plague. He has no interest going back into Florida until he’s ready to face his family, and he doesn’t know when that’ll be. He plans on going through Alabama to get to Mississippi.

Traffic picks up as the day goes on, The Hitchhiker has been with Lance for almost three hours now, and he doesn’t even know his name. To be fair, Lance hasn’t asked for it and he hasn’t given his own either.

They drive through the rest of Alabama and the entire state of Mississippi without a single word said to each other. Lance doesn’t know how far the full tank of gas will take him, he learned once, years ago when he first got the car when it was brand new, but it didn’t matter then, and he’s forgotten it now.

They’re passing through Louisiana when Lance changes the radio station, a catchy pop song filling the air. He keeps the radio low, not wanting to bust his eardrums but also not wanting the silence. The Hitchhiker doesn’t react, he continues staring out the window without another word. The silence didn't bother him before, but after hours of being in his own head he wants to stop thinking.

 

They’re on I-20 West when the cars gaslight turns on again. Lance stares at it, realizing how far he really must be if he has to pump gas again. He does the math in his head, trying to figure out exactly how long he’s been on the road.

As he’s counting the hours in his head he realizes he’s been sitting in silence with The Hitchhiker for almost nine hours, and on the road for a total of over fourteen, almost fifteen hours.

He’s definitely made a mistake, but there’s no turning back now. He made a commitment to The Hitchhiker, and he’s going to see it through. In the back of his head he knows he’s using this stranger as an excuse to keep on going further and further away from his problems, but he doesn't want to admit it, not even to himself.

Lance takes the next exit off of the highway, on a mission to find a gas station. The Hitchhiker takes his eyes away from the window for the first time in a few hours, looking at Lance with a slightly confused expression.

“Need gas.” Lance says simply.

He gives a curt nod and looks back out the window without a noise. Lance turns his attention to the road, the stranger in his car is nothing more than that, a stranger. Lance will take him from point A to point B and they’ll part ways to never see each other again.

He drives into a town called Shreveport, Louisiana and finds a gas station. He pulls up to a pump and The Hitchhiker gets out before he does, going up to the pump and swiping a debit card.

Lance steps out and walks up to him, “what are you doing?”

“You’re taking me across the country, the least I can do is pay for gas or something.” The Hitchhiker says.

He pulls the pump out and presses the nozzle into the car, standing by it as it fills the car up with gas. Lance stands there, loss for words, he didn’t really think about having The Hitchhiker pay for anything, it does make sense though.

Lance eventually nods. “Okay, we’ll switch on and off.”

The Hitchhiker looks at him and nods back, “sure. Watch the pump, I’m gonna get something from the shop, want anything?”

Lance shakes his head, “No, thanks. I’m good.”

He nods again and turns to walk toward the shop. Lance looks back at the pump, watching it closely.

 

_“You have to push the nozzle in like this.” Marco presses the nozzle of the gas pump into the car and pushes it all the way in. “And then by pressing this trigger under it the pump locks and you can take your hands off of it.”_

_He demonstrates exactly what he says and steps back, turning to look at his younger brother._

_Lance nods, watching closely. “Okay, that doesn’t seem too hard, I can do that.”_

_“You’re going to have to learn before you take your road test.” Marco puts his hand on his brothers shoulder. “I want you to take it out and put it back on the stand.”_

_Lance looks at his brother with wide eyes, “you sure? What if I do something wrong.”_

_“You won’t do anything wrong, you’re sixteen and going to take the test in a few weeks you need to know how to do this.”_

_“What if I start a fire and the whole place explodes?”_

_“Lance, what the hell. Just take it out and put it back on the stand, you’re not gonna make anything explode.”_

_Lance looks at the pump and nervously puts his hand on it, unclicking the lock and pulling it out, shaking it while it’s still in tank so he doesn’t drip gasoline when he pulls it all the way out. He takes it and turns to put it back on the stand, stepping around the cord so he doesn’t trip, something he would definitely do._

_He turns back to his brother and grins wide, “I did it!”_

_“Yeah, Lance! I told you that you could.” Marco ruffles his hair._

_Lance grins up at his brother, leaning over to hug him. He’s sixteen now, but he’s never too old to give his brother affection._

 

He’s snapped back to reality when the pump stops, clicking inside the tank to stop pouring gasoline now that it’s full. Lance rubs his face before shaking off the pump and taking it out of the car completely, putting it back on the stand.

Lance gets in the front seat of the car and waits for The Hitchhiker to come back. He doesn't wait very long, he comes back in with a package of trail mix, a few Slim Jim sticks, and a gatorade bottle. He gets in the passenger seat and buckles up.

Lance lets him get situated, he’s still trying to calm himself down. He can’t stop thinking about Marco. He rolls his shoulders back, trying to relax.

He checks the clock in his car, 3:28 pm. Time doesn’t feel real, not when he doesn’t have a set schedule to follow, hour by hour, like he normally does. Knowing the time brings him a bit back to reality. He needs that.

He turns to The Hitchhiker sitting next to him, it feels different now, he feels different now. More real.

“I’m Lance, by the way.” He holds out a hand for him.

The Hitchhiker hesitates for a moment, staring at the hand held out. “Keith.” He says, reaching out to shake it.

Lance smiles, it’s weird, but knowing The Hitchhiker- Keith’s name makes him feel a bit lighter. He takes his hand back and starts up the car, driving out of the gas station, back on the road, using signs to figure out where to go next.

He’s still trying to figure out how to get back on the highway when Keith speaks up again.

“Hey.” Keith says, bringing Lance’s attention onto him.

“Yeah?”

“You mind if we go around Texas, I just don’t-”

“No problem.” Lance cuts him off. “We’ll go around.”

He can tell Keith is running from something, whatever it is doesn’t matter. He knows better than anyone not wanting to go back to a certain state.

A small smile forms on Keith’s lips, only for a moment, his stoic expression is back within seconds. “Thanks.”

The smile makes something pleasant twist in Lance’s stomach. He doesn’t know why, but it’s a nice change from constantly wanting to throw up. He gives Keith a nod before rerouting himself, trying to figure out how to avoid an entire state.

It’s still quiet in the car, Keith isn’t keen on saying anything. Lance doesn’t mind so much, but he doesn't think he can keep quiet for much longer, normally he talks a mile a minute, he hasn’t been feeling himself the past few days so he’s been quiet, but the farther away he gets from home the better he feels, as long as he pushes down the guilt from leaving his family behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please Comment and Kudos it keeps me writing  
> You can contact me at [my voltron tumblr Shiroskitten](http://shiroskitten.tumblr.com/)  
> Next chapter will be up tomorrow if everything goes according to plan


	2. Saturday, June 23rd - Afternoon and Evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Hey, we should play a game.” Lance finds himself saying before his mind fully catches up.  
>  Keith turns his head to look at him, “what?”  
> “You know, like a car game. I spy, out of state license plates, or hitch dog, the game where you count dogs in passing cars.” Lance lowers the radio so it’s easier to hear each other speak. ___

They’re another hour and a half back on the road, Lance found a way to drive completely around Texas. They passed a sign on the freeway that says ‘Magnolia, Arkansas’ a few minutes ago.

Lance has been paying a lot of attention to the signs, and other people on the road too. He feels awkward in silence, even with the radio on. He went nine hours without a problem but now it’s uncomfortable, and Lance can’t stand it.

“Hey, we should play a game.” Lance finds himself saying before his mind fully catches up.

Keith turns his head to look at him, “what?”

“You know, like a car game. I spy, out of state license plates, or hitch dog, the game where you count dogs in passing cars.” Lance lowers the radio so it’s easier to hear each other speak.

“Okay…” Keith says slowly. “Why?”

“Road trips are supposed to be fun, driving in silence isn’t any fun.” Lance says.

What he doesn’t say is that the silence is giving him terrible anxiety and if they sit here without any talking any longer he might spontaneously combust.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Here, I’ll start.” Lance sits up in his seat and looks around, “I spy with my little eye, something… pink.”

“Is it that pink bumper sticker on the car in front of us?” Keith guesses.

Lance grins and nods, “yes! It is. That was fast.”

“There was only one pink thing in our line of sight.” Keith rolls his eyes.

“Okay, so maybe I spy isn’t the best game for us to play right now, but we can do something else. How abou-”

“Hitch dog.” Keith interrupts him, pointing out the window at a dog with his head hanging out.

Lance blinks, staring at it for a moment before turning his eyes back onto the road. “Damn, I didn’t even notice that. Point for you.”

They spend the next few hours playing silly games, Lance finds out that Keith is surprisingly competitive with car games. It matches Lance perfectly. 

They get super into them, jumping and pointing at every dog they see in a passing car, or a license plate from a state they haven’t noticed yet. Lance is more enthusiastic than Keith, but just because he isn’t as aggressive doesn’t mean he’s not just as into them as Lance.

Lance is watching the car in front of them. The man driving has his arm hanging out the window with a cigarette lit between his fingers, dusting off the ashes.

 

_ Marco smacks the cigarette out of Lance’s hand onto the pavement and steps on it to put it out. He looks at Lance the whole time, harsh eyes burning into Lance’s soul. _

_ “Lance, what the hell are you doing?” He yells. _

_ Lance flinches, his shoulders shrug and he looks away. “I dunno…” _

_ “You were smoking, that’s what you were doing! What the hell is wrong with you? You’ve been eighteen for less than twenty four hours and I find you with a pack a cigs?” _

_ “Well, I just thought I can do it legally now, I wanted to try it.”  _

_ Marco pushes his brother’s shoulder, Lance stumbles, stepping back a few steps. “I don’t care how legal it is, you don’t ever start smoking! Is this the first time you’ve done it?” _

_ Lance nods, telling the complete truth, “yes, first time, I swear.” He crosses his heart. _

_ “It fucking better be.” Marco snatches the pack from Lance’s hands. “I never want to see you doing this again. Lung cancer runs in our family, idiot! Mom’s brother had it, our Abuelito _ _  died from it, and you were going to speed up your own chances of having it!” _

_ “I’m sorry, Marco.” Lance’s voice sounds small even to his own ears. _

_ Legally he’s an adult now, but he’s never felt more like a little kid with his brother lecturing him like this. _

_ Marco sighs and his voice softens, “Lance, hey. I’m sorry for yelling, but I’m not sorry for what I said. You should know better than this.” _

_ “I know…” _

_ “And the twins look up to you, you have to set good examples for them.” Marco adds. “Just be happy I caught you and not Mama, she would have kicked you into next week. Eighteen or not you and I both know she’s still in charge of the both of us.” _

_ Lance smiles a bit, He steps closer and wraps his arms around Marcos torso, mumbling another apology into his brother’s shoulder. _

_ “You’re okay, Lance. Believe me, I’ve messed up just like you, it’s my job to look after you, make sure you don’t make the same mistakes I did, and it’s both our jobs to do the same for the twins.” He rubs his younger brother’s back gently. _

 

“Kansas.” Keith says, pointing at a car that’s merging into their lane a few cars ahead, breaking Lance out of his memory.

Lance shakes his head, pushing the thoughts of his brother to the back of his mind. He clears his throat and grumbles so Keith doesn’t get suspicious that he wasn’t paying attention.

“Damn, you’re way too good at this game, I can’t even read that plate.”

Keith shrugs, “just have good eyes I guess.”

Lance takes one hand off the wheel to rub his eyes, he throws himself back into the game, pointing out a dog before Keith has the chance to notice it.

They continue the game for another few hours, constantly finding dogs and seeing new license plates. As the time passes the sky gets darker, and less and less people get on the road.

They drive for a long stretch in silence, no new license plates come through, no dogs or animals of any kind either. The silence is a bit more comfortable now, after they spend the last few hours playing non stop.

Lance keeps his eyes on the road, there’s only a few other cars surrounding them. Keith is looking out the window, he’s taken his boots off and curled up in his seat, resting his weight on the door of the car, watching the road pass them by. He almost looks sleepy, Lance notes to himself.

They pass by a sign for ‘Huntington, Arkansas’ when Lance checks the time for the first time in a few hours. 8:30 pm. It makes sense now why the sun has gone down almost completely, and they’re driving with just the street lamps to light the way.

Lance turns the radio back on, filling the silence between them with some music. He flicks around for a moment, no station has a song he likes.

“Can’t find something worth listening to?” Keith asks, amused at how Lance is flicking through the stations so quickly.

“Yeah, don’t really like anything.”

Keith looks up and notices a CD pouch attached to his sun visor. He slips it off and opens it in his lap, “maybe there’s something in here.”

Lance looks over, “Maybe, I haven’t touched those in years, not since I was like, eighteen, there’s a lot of albums in there that I haven’t listened to in forever.”

Truth be told most of those Marco passed down to him as well as a few burned CD’s that Marco made for him, or helped him make. There’s a lot of memories on there that Lance isn’t ready to revisit. 

Keith lifts up the pouch, showing Lance the CD’s for  _ Pretty. Odd. _ by  _ Panic! At The Disco. _ Lance takes a quick look at it before going back to the road.

“What about that? It’s a good album.”

“It’s so… flowery.”

“Yeah, sometimes you just gotta listen to some folk music, you never get into one of those moods?”

“No?”

“Oh, well you’re missing out man.”

“You have a lot of  _ My Chemical Romance. _ ” Keith says, noticing all five albums in there. “Even have their first album.”

“Yeah.” The first album was Marco’s, Lance took it from him years ago and never gave it back. “I really liked them.”

“Oh, what’s this?” Keith pulls out a CD labeled in blue block letters ‘Lancey Lance’s Jammy Jams’.

All color drains from Lance’s face, “Oh, oh no you really don’t want to play that, put on  _ Three Cheers _ or  _ Black Parade _ or something.”

“Oh no, I really do want to play this.” Keith pushes the CD into the car and presses play.

The car is immediately filled with  [ _ Cobra Starship’s _ cover of  _ Hollaback Girl _ , ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMqg7oX4k9Y) Keith’s face is somewhere in between a look of shock and disbelief as he processes the lyrics to the song.

_ “Uh huh, Holy shit, It's about time you get off my dick. A few times you been around that track, But your ass is still flat it's gonna stay like that 'Cuz I ain't your hollaback boy’ _

He looks over at Lance, blinking once, his mouth partially open as he attempts to find something to say.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.” Lance turns up the radio to drown out whatever comment Keith is going to make.

 

After another hour of driving the left lane is coned off and Lance is forced to merge out of it. In the distance he sees a bright orange diamond shaped sign. As he gets closer he notices the words on the sign and smiles to himself.

 

_ “Road work ahead? Uh, yeah, I sure hope it does.” The computer in front of them plays the vine on a loop. _

_ Marco has fallen off of his chair and onto the floor he’s laughing so hard. Lance lays on the floor next to him, tipping his head back and grinning at his brother. In his opinion it’s not that funny of a vine, but his brother loves it, and anything that makes Marco laugh is amazing to Lance. _

_ Luis and Veronica giggle from their own chairs, watching their older brothers shake with laughter on the floor. _

_ “I’m gonna say this every time we pass a road work sign.” Marco says between laughs, gasping for air. _

_ Lance nods, agreeing with him. He knows for sure every time he sees that sign, he’ll think of his brother. _

 

Keith sneezes and Lance is thrown back into reality.

He blinks a few times, coming out of the memory. Lance frowns, these flashbacks are getting more and more frequent, getting lost in thought like that is dangerous when he’s driving, especially with another person in the car, he may not care about what happens to himself, but that doesn’t mean he should take Keith down whatever self destructive path he’s going on. 

This memory was much shorter than the last few, but that doesn’t make it any better.

He shakes his head a bit to clear his thoughts and turns to Keith as they pass by the sign.

“Road work ahead? Uh, yeah. I sure hope it does.” Lance imitates the voice of the vine.

Keith looks at him for a moment before he lets out a real, honest to god laugh. He covers his mouth and bends over a bit, finding the joke ridiculously funny.

The laughter is contagious, Lance finds himself laughing lightly, “come on man, it wasn’t that funny, I stole it from a vine.”

Keith lifts himself back up and rubs his face, “it was funny, really funny.”

He turns and gives Lance a bright smile, one that makes Lance feel light, like the weight of the world isn’t on his shoulders anymore.

For the first time since Marco passed away, Lance feels hungry. “Hey, you wanna get something to eat and then stop for the night?”

Keith nods, sitting up straight in his seat, putting his shoes back on. “Yeah, sounds good to me.”

Lance takes the next exit to get off the freeway. He drives into a city called Fort Smith, they see a twenty four hour diner almost immediately and Lance pulls into it, breakfast for dinner is exactly what Lance is in the mood for.

He parks the car and gets out, leaving his phone in the cupholder. He doesn’t need it anyway. Keith leaves his backpack in the car, pulling out his wallet from the front pocket. He leaves his own phone in the car as well.

They walk inside together and are seated quickly in a booth close to the back of the diner. As they’re flipping through the menu the booth in front of them are served. The smell of the pancakes the teenage girl ordered makes Lance’s stomach growl, loudly.

The waitress comes by to take their orders not long after that. Lance orders two servings of blueberry pancakes, Keith decides on a strawberry waffle.

Lance sits impatient, constantly looking at the door to the kitchen. He’s starving, all he can think about is food. It’s weird, considering the last time he was hungry was before Marco passed away.

Not long after the waitress comes back with their food, setting the plates down in front of the two boys. They thank her and begin eating, Lance devouring the first order of pancakes so quickly, Keith is afraid he’ll choke.

“Dude, have you eaten all day?” Keith asks as Lance moves to the second serving of pancakes.

Lance has thinks back on it, no he hasn’t. He’s been on the road since 12:30 am, he hasn’t had anything other than some water, which most definitely isn’t food. Now that he’s really thinking about it, Lance doesn't remember the last time he ate at all.

He thinks back to the day before, he went downstairs after a night of restless sleeping, and he ate a single pop tart, giving the other pastry in the pack to Veronica, not feeling that hungry. That was at ten in the morning.

Lance looks around the diner, seeing a analog clock on the wall. He reads the face, realizing it’s almost ten pm.

“The last time I ate anything was almost thirty six hours ago.” He says softly.

Keith frowns, “that’s not okay.”

“I haven’t slept in that long either.” He says, his voice at a more normal volume. He feels more tired now than he has in days.

“That’s even more not okay. You shouldn't have been driving.” A hint of concern is clear in the usual monotone of Keith’s voice.

Lance shrugs, “I wasn’t tired, wasn’t hungry either. I’ve eaten now, and we’ll get a room and I’ll be able to sleep through the night.”

“We could switch driving, on and off, if you need to. I’d like to get to the coast in one piece, and I can’t exactly do that if you push yourself into driving longer than you should.”

Lance sits back, taking a drink of his water. “I’ll think about it.” He isn’t sure how he feels about a stranger driving his car, but he’ll be spending another day, maybe two, with Keith, having him drive for a few hours here and there isn’t a bad idea.

Keith nods and goes back to his waffle, finishing it off as Lance finishes the last of his pancakes.

“I can’t believe you ate two orders of pancakes in the time it took me to eat a single waffle.” Keith says as the waitress sets down the bills for the two of them.

“What can I say, I was hungry.”

Lance feels better now that he’s eaten, he doesn’t feel as if he’s going to throw up afterwards either. They each leave a tip on the table for their waitress and go up to the counter to pay.

There’s a Motel 6 not far from the diner they ate at. Lance pulls into the rundown parking lot and they get out together. Keith holds his backpack in one arm and walks with Lance to the front office to get a room.

Lance walks up to the desk and rings the little bell to get someone's attention. Half a minute later a middle aged woman walks out, looking at the two boys in front of her.

Lance gives her a polite smile, “Hello, can we get a room? Two beds.”

“Two?” She raises an eyebrow, looking between the both of them.

Keith narrows his eyes at her but Lance clears his throat, diverting her whole attention back onto him.

“Yes, two.”

She gives them a room key and tells them the price, seventy dollars a night. They split it between them, and each grab a key. They won’t be needing it, they won’t leave the room unless it’s to check out, but that’ll be in the morning.

Keith takes the bed closest to the window, setting his bag down and looking around the room. It’s nice, two twin beds with a small table with a lamp between them. Plenty of open outlets to charge their phones but neither make the move to plug anything in. A tiny table rests under the windowsill with two chairs sitting across from each other, a small fake plant in the center.

There’s a small bathroom with a stand up shower and a one person sink. Keith sheds his jacket, leaving it on the bed as he checks out the bathroom. There’s a small sealed package of soap on the sink, under the mirror.

“Hey, what time is it?” Lance asks, setting his wallet and keys down on the table between the beds.

“Almost midnight.” Keith answers, taking a look around the room.

“It’s been a day.” Lance whispers to himself. 

It’s been almost a full day he’s been on the road. He looks at his phone that he placed next to his bed. It’s still dead, out of battery. He should charge it, text his family, tell them he’s okay.

He doesn’t.

“What did you say?” Keith asks.

Lance looks up at him and gives him a fake smile, “nothing.” He takes a seat on the bed, moving to lay down.

Keith pauses, he can tell something is wrong with Lance, but it’s not his place to say anything, he didn’t join Lance on this trip to make friends, he’s with him to get from point A to point B.

He looks away and turns to the bathroom. “Okay… I’m gonna shower.”

When Keith turns his head back Lance is lying above the covers, one leg hanging off the bed, holding one pillow as his head rests on the other.

Keith laughs lightly, he looks ridiculous. He walks over and puts Lance’s leg on the bed, in a, hopefully, more comfortable position, before he turns back around to take a quick shower.

It’s refreshing, the water is cold but after sitting around in a hot car all day it’s exactly what Keith needs. The soap doesn’t smell like anything, he kind of wishes it does. He steps out of the shower and dries himself off, putting his underwear and T-shirt back on.

Keith feels a little gross with a clean body and dirty clothes, but he doesn’t have anything else to wear, he left in a hurry. He bunches up his pants and sets them on table under the window, putting his jacket over it and setting his backpack on the chair.

He looks over at Lance, he must have woken up at some point during Keith’s two minute shower because he’s now under the covers, curled up, still holding the spare pillow.

Keith turns back to his own bed, peeling away the covers and laying down. He’s out almost as soon as his head hits the pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I work purely off validation please Comment and Kudos  
> If anyone is curious I genuinely love Cobra Starship, and their cover of Hollaback Girl, Hollaback Boy, is everything to me and you can listen to it [“Here”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMqg7oX4k9Y)  
> You can contact me at [my voltron tumblr Shiroskitten](http://shiroskitten.tumblr.com/)  
> Next Chapter should be up tomorrow!


	3. Sunday, June 24th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Pidge. My name is Pidge Gunderson.” It’s a fake name, Keith and Lance see right through it, but they keep their mouths shut and let her finish. “I heard you two were talking about going to California, I was wondering if you could give me a ride.”  
>  “Where?” Keith asks, straight to the point.  
> “Arizona. Phoenix, Arizona.” ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! I hope you enjoy this chapter <3

Lance wakes up first the next morning, much later than he would normally, later than he expected to sleep at all. He checks the small clock on the table between the two beds. 

10:00 am.

He sits up and rubs his face, waking himself up. He feels gross, sticky, he needs a shower. He stretches, cracking his back and folding out his arms, rolling his shoulders.

He looks over at Keith, fast asleep on the other bed, face pressed into the pillow. He looks relaxed, the most calm Lance has seen him. The entire time Lance was with him he looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, but now, as he sleeps he looks almost peaceful.

Lance swings his legs over the side of the bed and walks to the bathroom, turning the shower on. He strips as the water warms up, his back to the mirror. He doesn’t want to look at himself, not now.

He cleans up quickly, washing off all the sweat and dirt from his body. He does a quick rinse of his hair, it’s not dirty so it doesn’t need soap at all.

Once he’s done he stands under the spray, the pressure is light, it feels like rain on his skin. He misses this feeling.

Lance shuts the water off and pulls back the curtain, taking a towel to dry off. He pulls on the same clothes he was wearing the day before. His body may be clean but these clothes sure aren’t, he regrets leaving in such a rush now.

He shakes his head and turns to look into the mirror for the first time in days. He blinks, watching his reflection. It’s like a stranger is staring back at him, he doesn’t recognize himself.

He turns away from the mirror and opens the door, seeing Keith already awake and dressed, putting his jacket on.

Lance walks past him, over to his own bed where he pulls his jacket on, checking the pockets to make sure his keys and wallet are still there.

They are.

“How long have you been awake?” Lance asks, turning to face him.

Keith shrugs, “not long, you were in the shower the whole time.”

“It’s almost eleven in the morning, we should hit the road, we have a long way until California, we’ll probably have to stop again for the night, since we’re only in Arkansas.” He picks the key to the room up. “We need to return the key.”

Keith walks over to him and takes the key from Lance’s hand. “Get the car ready, I’ll return the key.”

Lance nods and they both take one last long look over the room, making sure they remembered to take everything, not that they had much they brought in to begin with.

Lance goes straight to the car, turning it on and blasting the air to cool it down. He looks around the area they’re in now that it’s daytime and he can see more clearly. The parking lot is filled with potholes, the yellow lines separating the parking spaces are barely visible they’re so old.

They have a little over half a tank of gas left, they don’t need to pump gas for a long while. The car can go about four hundred miles before they have to stop for gas.

The passenger door opens and Keith sits down, his backpack tucked between his legs on the floor of the car.

“Ready?” Lance asks, pushing the gear shift into reverse.

“If going through Texas will make the trip go faster we don’t have to avoid it.” Keith says, buckling his seatbelt and sitting back.

Lance watches him, his body language is still hard to read, but Lance can tell he’s still uncomfortable with even the thought of going through that state. He doesn’t push on the subject.

“No, going around Texas isn’t a big deal, it’ll barely take any time off of our trip. Besides Oklahoma is probably way prettier than Texas anyway.” Lance pulls out of the parking lot and onto the main road. 

“They look the same really.” Keith looks out the window, closing his eyes. “Not much difference in the landscape… Thanks.”

Lance relaxes in his seat, “no problem.” He says, softer than he would normally.

It gets quiet in the car after that, a comfortable silence falling over the two of them as they drive.

Keith shuffles through the folders of CD’s once again, pulling out  _ Pretty. Odd.  _ The same album he made fun of the night before. There’s nothing in the CD drive, after Keith had listened to the entirety of  _ Hollaback Boy  _ yesterday he took out the mix CD, calmly placed it back into the folder and pushed it back over the sunvisor, not willing to listen to any more of it.

Keith pushes in the new album, letting the folk music take over the car.

 

About an hour into the trip Keith calls out, “Hitch Dog!”

Lance narrows his eyes and turns to look at him, “oh, so that’s how you want to play it? You’re on Keith.”

Keith smirks. “Bring it, Lance.”

They go back and forth for hours, playfully arguing over license plates or whether or not the cat Lance saw in the passing truck counts as a dog.

Eventually their argument about whether the plain license plate in front of them says Michigan or Minnesota is interrupted by the gas light in Lance’s car turning on up and dings, diverting their attention.

“I guess we should stop for gas.” Lance turns on his signal, merging off the freeway.

It’s around four in the afternoon, it’s not rush hour quite yet but there’s still a lot of cars on the highway, it takes Lance a few minutes to weave through the traffic before he’s able to take an exit off, making his way into Woodward, Oklahoma.

He pulls into the first gas station he sees, up to a free pump. There’s only two other cars there, a middle aged woman and a teenage boy, both at the gas pumps across the way, neither going inside of the minimart, both already pumping their gas.

Lance steps out of the car, Keith doing the same. “I have to take a leak, I’ll be back real quick and we’ll get back on our way. We’ve been making good time, we’ll get to California by tomorrow afternoon.”

“yeah, hurry back, I’ll pump the gas and get some snacks from the mart.”

Lance goes off to the bathroom while Keith quickly pumps the gas. Once the tank is full he goes inside and grabs cheap snacks off the shelves, beef jerky, trail mix, a few candy bars and some water bottles. It’s more than necessary but they don’t like to stop, and if they’re able to keep themselves fed and hydrated through snacks from gas stations that’s all they need.

Keith walks out first, going to the car only to see a kid leaning on it. She’s a teenager, and a young one at that, Keith can already tell.

He slows his walk, eyeing her carefully. Short hair, glasses and a green quarter zip on, even with this heat. Lance comes up behind him, throwing an arm around his shoulders, he’s about to ask what Keith’s looking at but nothing comes up when he notices the kid too.

Keith stiffens a bit at the sudden contact, but forces himself to relax. By now he’s noticed that Lance is a little bit touchy, the light pushes in the car, the hands on his arm, brushes of their arms. It’s all natural to Lance, Keith’s still getting used to it.

They walk over to the car together, Lance removes himself from Keith and goes to the kid, while Keith goes to the passenger side, putting the bag of food in the car. 

“Hey, kid.” Lance says.

She looks up, making eye contact with Lance. She stands up straight, removing herself from the side of Lance’s car.

“Hello.”

“What are you doing here?” Keith asks, resting his arms on the top of Lance’s car, glaring slightly.

Lance shoots him a look before turning back, “what’s your name?”

“Pidge. My name is Pidge Gunderson.” It’s a fake name, Keith and Lance see right through it, but they keep their mouths shut and let her finish. “I heard you two were talking about going to California, I was wondering if you could give me a ride.”

“Where?” Keith asks, straight to the point.

“Arizona. Phoenix, Arizona.”

Lance looks at Keith, “it’s on our way.”

Keith shifts from one foot to the other, he wants to get to his destination as soon as he possibly can, but at the same time this kid is young, and she’s determined, it’s obvious, she’ll be going to where she wants one way or another, after all it’s only a slight detour.

Keith shrugs, “yeah, okay.”

Lance smiles, “I’m Lance, this is Keith. Get in the car, Pidge, we’ll take you where you need to go.”

Pidge flashes him a large grin, “Thanks, Lance.” She opens the backseat door and climbs inside, placing her backpack next to her.

Lance gets in and starts the car, waiting for both Pidge and Keith to put their seatbelts on before pulling out of the gas station and back onto the highway. 

“Hey, you get any chips while you were in there?” Lance asks Keith once they’re back on the highway.

He shakes his head, “no, but I got cheez whiz.” He holds up the spray can and a box of ritz crackers.

 

“So, where are you guys headed?” Pidge speaks up after five minutes of sitting in the car.

She moves into the middle seat, her backpack on the floor to the left of her and leans closer so her head is between their two seats.

Lance turns to reply only to see her face right next to his own and frowns. He reaches and pushes his palm into her face, trying to push her back into the seat.

“Sit back and put your seatbelt on, that’s dangerous.”

Pidge huffs and sits back, staying in the middle seat as he clips her seatbelt on. “It’s not illegal, I don’t have to wear a seatbelt in the back seat because I’m a teenager.”

“I don’t care, it’s dangerous.”

Keith raises an eyebrow at him, Pidge isn’t that much younger than either of them, but Lance is almost babying her. Lance looks at him briefly before turning back to the road with an unreadable expression.

“You didn’t answer my question.” Pidge says, once her seat belt is on. “Where are you guys going?”

“California.” Keith says flatly.

“Yeah, we’re going to the coast.” Lance builds off of it, “you have a reason for going Arizona?”

“Yeah, I’m going back home, see my parents and older brother again.” 

Lance stiffens at the mention of seeing family, specifically the mention of an older brother. Keith notices out of the corner of his eye and clears his throat, changing the subject immediately.

“How old are you, Pidge?”

Pidge pauses at the sudden topic change, but Lance doesn’t react to it, so she answers, “I’m fifteen. How old are you two?”

“Twenty one.” Keith answers

“Twenty.” Lance says afterwards.

Fifteen is only five and six years younger than the two of them. It’s really not that much of a difference if the two really think about it. Pidge is the same age as Lance’s twin siblings, Veronica and Luis, it brings out a protective side in him.

Pidge was at a gas station, alone in the middle of the day, asking strangers for a ride. She’s fifteen years old with determination in her eyes, if they had said no she would have moved on to someone else. She could have been left there all day, left to ask a strange man in the middle of the night, who knows what could have happened to her.

Lance thinks about his own siblings in that situation. It makes him feel sick to his stomach.

He doesn’t like thinking about it.

“Is there any reason you two are going to California?” Pidge asks, not liking how the three of them aren’t talking.

“No.” Keith says.

Pidge narrows her eyes at him, she doesn’t like how closed off Keith is, he isn’t open to any conversation, shutting her down any time she asks a question with a one word answer.

Lance rolls his eyes, Keith clearly isn’t around teenagers often. “Just to see the ocean, I’ve never been to west coast.”

“I’ve been before, on vacation to visit my Grandmother, she lives on the coast so we spent the whole time on the beach, it’s really fun to swim in the ocean, but everything’s really salty, it’s a lot different from the lakes we would visit in Arizona, where they’re freshwater and you don’t feel like you’re dying from thirst any time you accidentally get a mouthful of water.”

Pidge rambles on from topic to topic, Lance chats with her, letting her carry the conversation for the most part. Her personality is a lot like Luis, and it makes him feel warm inside, the feeling of homesickness pushed back a little, as long as he ignores the thick feeling of guilt for abandoning them. 

Having Pidge in the car makes the entire mood change, her energy is completely different from both of them, she brings out smiles with them, occasionally laughter, even from Keith. It’s a welcome change from what was originally there.

Keith warms up to her after a few hours, letting her get in on their games where they team up against Lance, Pidge leaning over to Keith as much as her seatbelt will let her to whisper what she can see from the backseat so Keith can call it out before Lance notices.

 

“This is two against one it’s not even fair.” Lance grumbles as Pidge points out another dog for Keith to yell.

“You’re the one who wouldn’t reset the points for Pidge to join us, it would just be unfair if we just let her join now, she would be so far behind.” Keith smirks.

Lance wants to wipe it off his face so bad. He reaches over and pushes his shoulder, “you suck.”

Keith lets him, gently being pushed towards the window. He has a smirk on his face, the longer he stays in the car with Lance the more he warms up to him. His goofy personality and touchy ways have grown on him.

Hours pass and the three of them grow quiet as it gets later into the night. It’s almost 11:00 when Lance checks the rearview mirror, noticing Pidge leaning back in her seat as she yawns.

“Hey what do you guys say we go through a drive through and stop for the night?” Lance speaks up.

Keith looks over from his window and nods, “yeah, sounds good to me.”

Pidge rubs her eyes and nods, “yeah, okay.”

“There has to be a 24 hour fast food restaurant somewhere, and I should pump gas tonight so we don’t have to stop other than breakfast tomorrow.”

Lance gets off the highway, there’s still a few people on the road, it not even being midnight yet. Lance sees the bright 24 Taco Bell sign illuminating the road. He pulls into the drive through, there’s a good amount of people in there for the time of night.

“You guys know what you want?” Lance asks, pulling out his wallet.

“Crunchwrap.” Keith says.

Pidge shrugs, “something with chicken and cheese please.” she says, not really caring about what she gets to eat.

Lance nods and places their order as they drive through, he gets the three of them water, every drink they could want has caffeine, and that’s the last thing they need before they’re about to sleep.

He drives up to the window and gives the girl his debit card. Keith mumbles his thanks and that he’ll pay for gas when they get there. Pidge reaches into her backpack to get out her wallet but Lance shuts her down quickly, not letting her pay.

Pidge is too tired for an argument, she puts her wallet back in her back and closes her eyes, curling up as best she can with the seatbelts restriction.

Lance takes the bag and three bottles of water, hands one behind him to Pidge as well as the bag with her meal in it.

She takes it with a thank you and opens the bag, unwrapping her chicken quesadilla and taking a bite, realizing how hungry she actually is, she hasn’t eaten since before she asked them for a ride. 

Lance unwraps his burrito and drives out of the parking lot while eating, it’s a handheld food, easy enough to drive with as he eats. He pulls into a gas station, up to the pump and turns to Keith who has already finished his crunchwrap and is unbuckling his seatbelt.

“It’s been like three minutes how have you already finished eating?” Lance says in shock.

Keith shrugs, “I don’t know, I was hungry.” 

He steps out of the car and begins to pump gas, they still have a quarter of the tank left, but neither want to stop in the morning, they both prefer to waking up tomorrow and driving to drop Pidge off in one straight shot.

Lance shifts in his seat to look at Pidge behind him. She’s eaten most of her chicken quesadilla by now, just sitting in her seat.

“You still awake?” Lance asks.

She blinks up at him and smiles, “barely.”

“We’ll get to the motel soon, don’t worry. Then tomorrow you’ll be with your family like you want.”

She looks down at her lap, “yeah… Thank you, for driving me. I know it’s out of your way…”

“Not by much, and besides you’re pretty cool to be around.” Lance gives her a grin.

She smiles back and Keith opens the car door, pulling out his empty Taco Bell bag and crumpling the gas receipt in his hand, throwing it inside. Lance and Pidge quickly finish their own meals and hand Keith their trash, having him throw it in the trash can beside him before getting back in the car.

Lance puts the car in drive and pulls out of the gas station, quickly finding a motel not too far away. He pulls into the parking lot and Lance gets out of the car, stretching his long legs before grabbing his wallet from the cupholder.

Pidge gets out as well, holding her backpack, “I can help pay for the motel.”

“No.” Keith says, bumping his shoulder with Lance as they walk into the front office, the door is open, there’s a middle aged women sitting by a run down computer who looks up when the three of them walk in.

“Hello, we would like a room for the night.” Lance walks up to the desk.

She eyes the three of them, she gets a lot of interesting people working at a motel, especially during the night, but two young men and one teenage girl isn’t something she expected at this time at night.

Pidge walks away from the two of them, admiring a painting of a sunset on the wall opposite of them.

She takes a moment to check the computer to see what rooms she has available. “I got one queen or two twins, take your pick.”

Lance turns to Keith, “you mind sharing a twin?” Keith shakes his head, sharing a bed isn’t the worst idea. “We’ll take the two twins.”

She tells them the price and they pay it together, Pidge still distracted in the background. Once they get the key Lance puts his arm around Pidge’s shoulders, leading her out of the office.

Keith walks ahead of them, unlocking their room door to let them inside. The room is weirdly similar to the one they had in Arkansas, two beds with a small table between them as well as a table with two chairs by the window. 

The two boys go for the first bed they see, the one closest to the door. Keith sets his backpack down next to it, sitting down and taking off his boots.

“There’s only two beds? I could share one if you guys want.” Pidge says, walking over to the bed by the window.

Keith turns to Lance who shakes his head, before answering Pidge, “no, we’re fine sharing.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.” She takes off the quarter zip she’s been wearing and sets it on the table, next to her backpack.

Pidge gets under the covers, fully clothed, she has clothes in her backpack but she doesn’t feel like going in the bathroom to change, not being comfortable to do so in front of Lance and Keith.

She rolls over so she can look out the window, the curtains are mostly sheer, she can see the night sky through them. Her eyes are glued to the moon as she’s lost in her thoughts

Lance and Keith both take off their jackets and let them drop to the floor. It’s a little weird, changing in the same room as a teenage girl, but sleeping in jeans is uncomfortable, and she isn’t facing them.

“What state are we in now?” Pidge asks, not looking at either of them.

“New Mexico, we’re in Santa Fe.” Lance says as he gets under the covers, “I saw the sign when we entered the city.”

Keith gets in on his right side, it’s uncomfortable, the bed is very small and they’re both tall. Lance may be a little lanky, but he’s not that skinny, and Keith has very broad shoulders, they’re almost on top of each other.

“Almost home.” Pidge whispers, she rolls onto her back, looking up at the ceiling. “My name isn’t really Pidge Gunderson by the way.” she says after a few moments of silence.

“Oh really? Never would have guessed” Keith says, earning an elbow in the stomach from Lance.

“We kind of figured.”

“It’s Katie. Katie Holt. My older brother calls me Pidge, so I’ve been going by that all summer, cause I missed him.”

“Where have you been all summer?”

“There’s this science camp in Oklahoma that I begged my parents to let me go to. It’s two months long, all of June and July. It’s for high school students, basically you just learn about a bunch of different science stuff. It’s hands on and it was really fun.”

“It’s the end of June, shouldn’t you still be there?”

Pidge fists the blanket in her hand, turning her head away from them for a moment. “I kind of… blew up one of the chemistry labs.”

“You  _ what?!”  _ Both Lance and Keith turn to look at her in shock.

She sinks further into the bed, “It was after we learned about which metals you can burn to get different colors, you know, like in fireworks. We didn’t do very many of them but I thought they were cool, and I wanted to do more, so late last night I snuck into the lab and started mixing them myself to see which colors I could get by burning different metals. I went a little too far, and mixed too much of a few metals, added too much of the solution and next thing i knew there was a minor explosion. I was pushed back and hit my head on the desk and when I looked up there was a fire spreading across the lab table. I panicked and ran. I hit the fire alarm on the way out and instead of leaving the building like everyone else I went back to my dorm, packed up whatever I could fit into my backpack and ran off campus as far as I could get.”

“Is that how you got to the gas station and found us?” Lance asks.

“Yeah, I ran to the next city over and that’s where I found you. I know it was stupid and I shouldn’t have ran but I was scared, and I missed my family and I just wanted to see them again but I would have had to go to the office and The Dean would have been so mad at me and they would have called my parents and I didn’t want to go through that so I just left. I left and it was a really stupid idea but I miss  _ home  _ and I miss my brother and my dog and Arizona in general, I just panicked.”

Pidge talks faster as she goes on, jumbling her words together, tripping over them when she stutters. She chokes up when she talks about her family, and how much she misses them, the two of them can tell just by the way she sounds that she’s crying, clearly trying to hide it.

“Hey, hey.” Lance speaks up, “don’t beat yourself up over this. Yeah it was a stupid idea, yeah you fucked up and running away probably wasn’t the best idea but you’re  _ fifteen  _ Pidge, you blew something up, that’s terrifying! Your parents will understand, the head of that camp will understand too, you were alone in that lab and you pulled the fire alarm, you did the right thing there.”

“Running away wasn’t the right thing.” Pidge rubs her eyes.

“No, it wasn’t.” Lance bunches up the blankets in his hands, Keith notices. “Running away is usually a bad idea, and you shouldn’t have done it but you did, and that’s okay, because you’re going back home to face your problem head on. It was a mistake, but you’re fixing it, even though you’re scared, and that’s good. You’ll go home, see your family, face the consequences and everything will work out.”

Pidge sniffles and rolls over, facing the two of them, “thank you, Lance.”

“You’re welcome, Pidge.” He says softly. 

He watches her for a few moments, noticing how quickly her shoulders relax and she falls asleep after their talk. She had the weight of the world on her shoulders, and now she’s free and ready to face her mistakes.

It reminds Lance a lot of the late night talks he used to have with Marco, how he used to sneak into his brothers bed and talk about the problems he had, all mundane, nothing as serious as blowing up a chemistry lab, but Marco would calm him down, no matter how hysterical he got, and tell him it’s okay that he messed up, and it’s better that he owns up to it then let it sit and ignore it, run away from it.

Running away from his own problems, from his family was a huge mistake, he needs to take his own advice and face his problems head on like he told Pidge to, but he won’t even turn his cellphone back on.

His eyes well up with tears and he sniffs quietly, he rubs his eyes quickly and tries to calm himself down before Keith notices, even though it’s almost impossible for him not to notice, they’re pressed shoulder to shoulder in the small bed.

Keith shifts and presses his nose to Lance’s shoulder. It’s a very small gesture, but somehow it relaxes Lance more than he could have ever hoped for in that moment. He rolls back his shoulders and shifts a little closer to Keith, closing his eyes.

Lance wishes he was able to have one of those talks with Marco before he left that night, but if he had he never would have met the two people in this room with him.

He never would have met Keith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you understood the cheez whiz reference I love you  
> Please Comment and Kudos please I thrive off attention  
> You can contact me at [my voltron tumblr Shiroskitten](http://shiroskitten.tumblr.com/)  
> Next Chapter will be up tomorrow!


	4. Monday, June 25th - Morning and Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Keith shifts and bats Lance’s hands off of him, opening his eyes. He rubs his face and sits up as Lance moves back.  
>  “What time is it?”  
> “Pretty early, almost seven am. We should get going soon, if we leave now we’ll be able to get to Pidge’s house and wherever you’re going by tonight.” ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She’s a long one this one, buckle up lads. It gets emo

Lance wakes up the next morning with his face pressed into Keith’s neck, the other man has his arms around him, one across his lower back, hand resting comfortably on his hip, another across his shoulder, hand touching the nape of his neck, fingers brushing the small amount of hair there. 

Lance is basically on top of him, there isn’t any other way they could be on this very small bed together if he wasn’t. Keith’s arms are tight around him, and for the first time in three days he feels okay.

It’s ridiculous, Keith is still a stranger to him, a man he picked up off the side of the road, they don’t even know each other’s last names, and yet he feels more safe in his arms than he did at his own home.

Normally in a situation like this Lance would make a flirtatious joke about the cute boy holding him, but he can’t bring himself to do it. He nuzzles further into Keith’s neck and closes his eyes, letting himself have this for a few more minutes.

Eventually he hears rustling on the other side of the room, Pidge sitting up in her bed. He lifts his head up and squirms out of Keith’s hold, careful not to wake him up. He picks his shirt up off the floor and slips it on as he walks over, sitting next to the young girl.

She looks up and gives him a weak smile, “morning, Lance.”

“Good morning. You feeling okay?”

She nods, “better than yesterday. Thanks, for last night. That talk helped me a lot. Matt, my brother, he’s usually the one that talks me down from things like that.”

“Well you have me as your replacement older brother, until we get to your house so you can see him again.”

“You really think he won’t be mad?” She asks quietly.

“He’s probably just really worried, and wants you to come home so he knows you’re safe. Have you talked to him at all?”

“No, my phone has like a million missed calls from him and my parents though. They probably know by now that I’m the one that started the fire, since the school has all those security cameras.”

“It’ll all be fine, they’ll be grateful to see you, know you’re safe, and back at home with them, which you will be in a few hours.”

“Yeah… Thank you.”

She shifts to give Lance a hug. It’s a little awkward, them sitting next to each other, twisting their bodies in an attempt to give a proper hug, but it’s still nice. Lance presses a soft kiss to her hair, this feels exactly like him comforting Veronica or Luis.

“No problem Pidge.”

She pulls back and wipes her eyes, clearing her throat. “So, what’s with you and Keith? Why are you two on this road trip together? You two didn’t look like you’re from Oklahoma.”

“Oh, we’re not. I’m not anyway, I’m from Florida, I don’t know where he’s from. There isn’t much between us, I met him on Saturday, today’s what? Monday?”

“Wait, you just met him? So you two don’t know each other? Like at all?”

Lance shakes his head, “no, I picked him up the same way we picked you up. He was on the side of the road, needed to go somewhere, I was driving alone figured it wouldn’t hurt going to California.”

“You… what? You seem like you’ve been life long friends, immune to each other’s traits, like you’re so touchy and friendly with him and he doesn’t react but it doesn’t stop you and I’m sure if I tried doing that with him he’d just give me a weird look and move out of the way, and you ignore how he’s quiet all the time and talk to him anyway, and he lets you do it without looking annoyed.”

Lance turns his head, looking back at Keith, still asleep in his bed, he did wake up on top of Keith, sure it had been in their sleep but Keith’s arms were around him, holding him so close to make sure he wouldn’t fall off the bed. 

He looks back at Pidge and shrugs, “I guess we just get along well. We only met a few days ago.”

She hums, “guess you were just meant to meet.” She stands up and stretches, before picking up her backpack, “I’m going to change, we should leave soon.”

Lance nods, “yeah, you do that. I’ll wake Keith up.” He stands and makes his way over to the other bed.

Pidge walks into the bathroom and shuts the door behind her as Lance leans over and shakes Keith gently, waking him up.

Keith shifts and bats Lance’s hands off of him, opening his eyes. He rubs his face and sits up as Lance moves back.

“What time is it?”

“Pretty early, almost seven am. We should get going soon, if we leave now we’ll be able to get to Pidge’s house and wherever you’re going by tonight.”

Keith nods and stretches his back, cracking it, before swinging his legs off the side of the bed and picking up his pants. The two get dressed pretty quickly, Lance hands Keith his jacket as Pidge walks out of the bathroom, dressed in a new pair of shorts and a clean T-shirt.

She folds up the quarter zip still on the table and shoves it into her backpack, The New Mexico weather being too hot to wear something like that.

They return the key and pile in the car by seven am, Lance starting it up as the other two get comfortable in their respective seats.

“Alright, McDonalds breakfast before we hit the road?” Lance asks.

“Sounds great to me.” Pidge says as Keith nods his head.

There’s a bit of a line at the McDonalds drive through, it being early on a Monday morning, plenty of people going through to get breakfast before their workday starts.

Lance orders them three egg McMuffins with hash browns as well as a caramel macchiato for himself, a black coffee for Keith and an orange juice for Pidge, her not liking coffee.

Lance passes the bags to everyone and pulls out his own egg McMuffin to eat while driving, getting on the highway. Keith sits up straighter after a few sips of his coffee, feeling more awake as he gets some caffeine.

Lance uses the signs to navigate where he’s going, still refusing to turn on any technology in order to find his way out of this state, figuring he’ll be able to do it on his own, without having to look at any of the probably hundreds of missed calls and messages from his family and friends back home.

Lance and Pidge strike up some conversation, Keith talking with them for a bit when the topic changes around, mostly he just stares out the window, listening to them speak.

 

After a few hours in the car the three of them run out of things to talk about. Keith pulls off the CD case again and begins to look through it, wanting to find a new album to listen to.

“Wow, you really liked  _ Cobra Starship _ huh?” Keith comments, looking at the four albums, all in order.

“What can I say, I had a crush on Gabe Saporta. Also all their songs are bops and bangers, the original sad lyrics set to a funky beat.”

“Yeah, we have very different music tastes.”

“The baseline is the same, you like  _ My Chemical Romance _ . I have some  _ Fall Out Boy _ in there I think, if you like them.”

Keith flips a few pages and finds several  _ Fall Out Boy _ albums in the little pockets. He pulls out  _ From Under the Cork Tree _ and pushes it into the CD drive, letting the first song play.

“Better?” Lance asks.

“Better than the radio yeah. I mean, I could’ve always put on your wonderful mix CD of jammy jams.”

“Please stop I made that when I was 15, okay. That was literally in 2013, I was going through some weird phases.”

Pidge leans forward, “I want to know whats on that mix CD.”

“Well I know it starts with  _ Cobra Starship’s _ cover of  _ Hollaback Girl _ , called  _ Hollaback Boy _ .” Keith says, flipping back through the book of CD’s until he finds where he put Lance’s mix CD back.

He lifts it up to show Pidge, who giggles when she sees the blue sharpie written all over the top. “It’s beautiful Lance, can we play it?”

“I don’t even remember what’s on there, please don’t.”

“Can we just flick through to see the songs?” Pidge pleads.

He huffs, “I’d really rather you not, there isn’t like a set theme to the playlist, it’s just a bunch of random songs, and a lot of them are old and I really don’t want to listen to this again.”

“Too late.” Keith ejects the  _ Fall Out Boy _ CD and holds up the mix CD.

“I hate you, so much.”

“We won’t listen to the whole thing, just skip through and listen to the beginning of each song.” 

Keith pushes it in and the first one that plays is one he’s already very familiar with. He presses skip, moving on to the second song in the playlist, Pidge recognizing it immediately.

“Is this  _ Girlfriend _ by Avril Lavigne?” 

Lance sinks down in his seat, “maybe…”

Keith snorts and skips to the next song, this one takes a few moments for Keith to realize what it is, he looks to Lance and shakes his head.

“You just really love these  _ Cobra Starship _ covers huh.”

“... This one has  _ Fall Out Boy _ featured.”

“Wait, is this a band changing  _ I Kissed a Girl  _ to  _ I Kissed a Boy?”  _ Pidge speaks up.

“Yeah, they are, I had to download both those covers from youtube too, there wasn’t a way to get them legally.”

Keith skips to the next song, recognizing the beginning from when he put it  _ Pretty. Odd.  _ earlier. “This was the last one on that flowery album, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,  _ Mad as Rabbits. _ ”

He presses skip to the next one and Pidge giggles, quickly figuring out what song it is, “This is  _ Year 3000  _ by the  _ Jonas Brothers!” _

Lance sighs, “yes. Yes it is.”

“You had a really… Diverse music taste.” Keith comments.

“Yeah, I know. Just play the next one already, get it over with.”

The next song is  _ 7 Things  _ by  _ Miley Cyrus.  _ Pidge makes them play that entire song, both Lance and her singing the words dramatically to Keith who just sits there, stunned.

“I haven’t heard that song in years.” Lance laughs when it’s over. “I can’t believe I still remember all the words.”

“I watched Disney Channel religiously when I was a kid, me and Matt used to sing that song all the time together.” Pidge giggles, a little out of breath from all the singing.

“Can’t relate.” Keith says, as the next song switches over.

Keith and Pidge both recognize it immediately and turn to give Lance a look. Lance sits up straight and shakes his head.

“I will not be shamed for having  _ What Makes You Beautiful  _ by  _ One Direction  _ on this mix CD. it’s a good song and their music slaps.”

Keith rolls his eyes and presses next, grinning as he hears the beginning of the next song. “ _ Misery Business.  _ I loved  _ Paramore.”  _

Lance smiles at him, “Me too, Hayley Williams was my ideal woman all throughout middle and high school. But to be fair I also thought Pete Wentz was my ideal man, with that 2006 emo fringe and eyeliner. I was going through some stuff.”

Keith hums, “I was more into Danger Day era Gerard Way types.” he says, skipping to the next song on the playlist.

It takes a few moments but Pidge is the first to get it. “Is this  _ Since You Been Gone  _ by  _ Kelly Clarkson?” _

Lance nods, “Yeah, I think I was going through a breakup when I made this, so that’s how this song ended up on here, but if we’re being honest the break up was more like the girl I was crushing really hard on, but literally never talked to me because we weren’t even friends, got a boyfriend and I was hurting, so I put this song on here.” Lance says, starting to remember things about high school. His noses scrunches up and he shakes his head, “next song, I’m remembering things about high school that I’ve blocked out for years.”

The next, and last, song has Keith laughing in his seat, knowing exactly what song it is from the beginning notes. “Oh this is playing all the way through.”

Pidge looks at them confused, especially when Lance starts dramatically head banging while driving. “What song is this?”

“ _ I’m Not Okay  _ by  _ My Chemical Romance.” _ Keith informs her.

“Oh, I guess I never listened to much of them.” She shrugs.

“Keith, take this out put in  _ Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge  _ or  _ Black Parade.  _ This poor girl needs to listen to at least one of those iconic albums before we get her home.” Lance says, completely seriously.

 

They end up listening to both, Lance and Keith, mostly Lance, singing dramatically along to almost every song on each album, Pidge learning to like the style of the music.

Soon it’s been over seven hours since they left the motel, and Pidge begins to recognize the highway they’ve entered, asking them to lower the music so she can tell Lance which exit to get off of, and how to get to her neighborhood that’s not too far from it.

She vibrates in her seat, nervous, excited, and scared all at once. She sits back and tries to take a few deep breaths to calm herself. Lance leans back in his seat, pulling back his right hand from the wheel to reach back and touch her knee comfortingly.

She smiles softly, placing her own hand over his, thankful for the gesture. She leans forward a bit and tells him to take a turn onto a side street, a shortcut to her neighborhood. Lance pulls his hand back and listens to her directions.

They pull into an upper middle class neighborhood, large two four bedroom, two story houses, sidewalks covered in chalk from young children playing in their yards.

Pidge tells Lance to take two left turns and one right before having him stop in front of a beautiful two story house. There’s a sign in the front that lets others know there’s an invisible fence around their yard. Colorful flowers are planted close by the house, a minivan parked in the driveway, on the back two seperate bumper stickers saying “Proud parent of my Honor Student”.

Lance puts his car in park before turning his head to look at Pidge. “You ready?”

Pidge takes a deep breath, rubbing her face before pulling her backpack close to her and nodding. “Yes. Thank you, both of you.” She gets out of the car and stands up straight, looking at the house in front of her.

Keith steps out and stretches his arms, cracking his neck. Pidge looks at him in shock, turning when she hears Lance get out as well, locking the car with the keys in his hand, putting them in his jacket pocket.

“What are you two doing?” Pidge asks, looking at the both of them like they’re crazy.

“What? You think we’re just going to let you go with a half assed goodbye and leave you in front of this house without making sure you’re safe?” Keith says.

“Yeah, come on, Pidge. Don’t be ridiculous.” Lance walks around, putting an arm around Pidge as he walks with her up to her house.

Pidge smiles, relaxing under her arms. She wasn’t expecting this at all, she thought she would tell them goodbye and they’d leave, letting her go up to that house alone.

They walk across the lawn, aiming for the front door only for it to fly open before they’re even close, a young man, only a little older than Lance and Keith, looking almost identical to Pidge only without glasses, running towards them.

Pidge breaks off from Lance, yelling “Matt!” As she runs towards her brother, jumping up into his arms, hugging him around his neck tight as he spins her around. An older man and woman walk out of the house, rushing over to Pidge once Matt sets her down, giving her tight hugs.

Keith slows his walk down to a stop, watching the family come together for a group hug. It’s heartwarming really, seeing an older brother hug his younger sister, the parents come up to hold her, happy she’s home, safe again in their arms.

Lance stops dead in his tracks, his blood feels like ice running through his veins, he feels sick watching the family reunite. It should be nice, watching Pidge be with her family again, watching them accept her with open arms after she was so worried the past few days that they wouldn’t accept her, that they would be so mad at her they wouldn’t be happy to see her again, but all Lance can think about is his own family.

All Lance can think about is Marco.

 

_ Marco steps out of his car after his first full year at college, states away from his home. Lance is the first one out of the house, bursting through the door before Marco has even shut the car door. _

_ Lance nearly tackles his brother to the ground with how aggressive his hug is. Holding so tight he almost lifts the older man off the ground. _

_ “Woah there, Lancey Lance. I’m not going anywhere.” Marco laughs, hugging his brother back. _

_ “You better not be. I get you for the whole summer, no leaving this time. No stupid internship to go to, and no stupid college states away either.” Lance says, loosening his grip on his brother. _

_ “That’s right, I’m all yours. Well, at least until I find a summer job, but you have one of those too, so you can’t blame me.”  _

_ Marco pulls back completely when he sees his parents walk out of the house, giving each of them a tight hug before spinning around and running after the twins, who have been sneaking around his car while he was distracted. _

_ Lance watches his brother play with his siblings, he missed having him home. Marco’s first year of college was hard, especially because it was also Lance’s first year of high school, not having him around for that was hard, really hard. _

_ Almost all of Lance’s teachers had Marco at some point in his four years of high school, so Lance was constantly compared to him, which only made him miss his brother more, not having him around every day sucked. _

_ Lance of course did figure out how to get by, calling him at least once a week to tell him how high school was going, asking him about college and how his classes are and if he misses home. _

_ Marco always said yes, even if at times he didn’t. _

 

Lance is pulled back into real time when he feels somebody stand in front of him. He blinks a few times to clear his vision, seeing Matt standing there, a large smile plastered on his face.

“Thank you, so much for bringing Pidge back home. We were all so worried about her.”

It takes Lance a moment to react but he gives him a weak smile, “Y-yeah, no problem. Stopping here was kind of on our way anyway.”

“Still, thank you. We got a call about her setting the fires at school and how no one could locate her we were all terrified, I was one step away from hacking her phone to track her, but she had turned it off.”

Pidge’s parents come up to the two boys, thanking them each. Her mother gives both boys tight hugs, Keith is stiff in his while Lance hugs back lightly, mostly focused on pushing off his own tears.

All he can think about is his own family, and how he left them when they needed him most.

“You two are welcome to stay here for the rest of the day and sleep here, really it won’t be any trouble.” Pidge’s father says, his hand on Lance’s shoulder.

Lance opens his mouth to respond but nothing comes out, before anyone can comment on it Keith speaks up.

“Thanks but sorry, we can’t. We should actually be getting back to the road, we’re hoping to make it to California before the day ends.”

“Well, if you two are sure.” He steps back from them.

Pidge runs over and gives the two of them tight hugs, lingering on Lance, she grew closer to him than Keith. Lance nuzzles his nose into her hair and hugs her back just as tight before pulling back.

“Thank you, so so much.”

“You’re welcome, Pidge.” He ruffles her hair, trying to hide the fact that his own hands are shaking.

They exchange phone numbers, Lance tells her he isn’t sure when he’ll turn his phone on, but when he does, he’ll text her to check up. She thanks him with another hug and the Holt family lets the two boys walk back to their car.

Lance gets in the driver’s seat, takes a deep breath and starts the car again before driving out of Pidge’s neighborhood. It’s quiet in the car without her, neither of them like it very much, but Lance barely notices, too caught up in his own head.

All he can think about is his own family, his own younger siblings, Veronica and Luis, his own parents, his Abuelita, everyone who needs him right now he abandoned.

They drive back out onto the desert, just the two of them and the open road, nobody else. They haven’t passed a single car for the twenty minutes they’ve been on this long stretch.

Keith turns to look at Lance only to see his hands gripping the wheel so tight they’ve gone white. He frowns, looking over his tense posture, he’s staring at the road in front of him but Keith can tell his eyes aren’t focused on anything.

“Lance?” He asks.

Lance blinks twice, turning to look at Keith. His mouth opens to ask what Keith wants but nothing comes out.

“Pull over.” Keith demands. Lance shakes his head but Keith’s eyes narrow and he says it again, more firm. “Pull. Over.”

Lance flinches at his tone, borderline yelling at him, but he listens. It’s a shitty job, his cars tires obviously not equipped well enough to drive on sand, but where he stops is hard enough sand that his tires won’t get stuck. 

Lance unbuckles his seatbelt and opens the door, he makes it out barely ten steps before he’s emptying the contents of his stomach on the side of the road.

Keith rushes out and puts a hand on Lance’s back, another on his arm. There isn’t much in his stomach, they didn’t stop for lunch they had been eating the snacks Keith bought from the gas station the day before.

It’s mostly bile and what’s left of the three Ritz Crackers topped with Cheez Whiz. He steps back and Keith leads him back to the car. Lance pulls himself up onto the hood and sits there as Keith brings him a bottle of water.

The water is warm and tastes like plastic. It’s old, from the day before, Keith picked it up when he was grabbing the snacks, when they first met Pidge the day before.

He swishes it around in his mouth before spitting it out to his left, watching it land on top of the dry desert sand. He feels Keith jump up and sit on the hood of his car next to himself, to his right.

Lance pours some of the water into his hand and throws it on his face. It gets on his shirt, and a bit on his jacket as well, but Lance doesn’t care right now.

He hands the bottle back to Keith who takes it, putting the cap back on and setting it next to him.

After a few moments of silence Keith speaks up. “So are you going to tell me what’s up with you?”

Lance rubs his face and shakes his head, “nothing, it’s nothing. Come on we’re losing daylight, we should keep driving.”

“Bullshit Lance. You’ve been messed up ever since we dropped Pidge off, you were gripping the wheel so tight your knuckles were white, we pulled over and the first thing you did was throw up, and now your hands are shaking.”

“Nothing! Nothing is wrong, I don’t have to explain myself to you, you don’t even know me!” Lance yells, he doesn’t want to tell Keith anything, he doesn’t want to admit he’s a fuck up.

“I know you well enough to know something is wrong, and you can’t drive like this!”

“Nothing is wrong! I’m fine!”

Lance throws his arms up and Keith reaches over, grabbing both hands in his own, pulling them down. Lance turns his head and locks eyes with Keith, he feels his own begin to fill with tears. He shuts them tight, a few dripping down his face as he struggles to get out of Keith’s grip.

He tries to pull his arms out but Keith’s grip tightens, moving from his wrists to his forearms. There’s such clear concern in his eyes that it makes him feel even worse for what he did. He doesn’t deserve Keith to care so much about him, especially for only knowing him for a few days.

He doesn’t want to admit to Keith what he did, why he’s out here in the middle of the desert, playing chauffeur to strangers he picked up off the side of the road. The more he thinks about it the more he feels himself break down.

Keith pulls him in closer as Lance’s struggle weakens, hands going to his upper arms to his shoulders until Keith’s arms are around him, Lance’s head is tucked into Keith’s neck. 

Keith holds him tight, he feels Lance’s head dip, cold nose pressed to the crook of his neck as he lets out the first of many strangled sobs. Lance’s own arms come up, wrapping around Keith and keeping him as close as he can, even though he isn’t going anywhere.

Keith doesn’t know why Lance has suddenly broken down, after fighting with Keith to so much as pull over, although he expected this to happen eventually, it’s no surprise it’s happening now.

After a while Lance pulls his head out, rubbing the tears out of his eyes and into his skin. Keith sits back and watches him, his arms move back to to his own lap, letting Lance put himself back together.

“I-I’m sorry.” Lance says, his voice raw from his sobs. “I just. I’m sorry.”

“What happened, Lance?” Keith asks, gently.

Lance takes a deep breath, looking around. The sun is high in the sky, slowly moving east as the day goes on. He turns back to Keith before talking again.

“My brother died, that’s what happened.” He says quietly. “It happened on Thursday.”

“Today is Monday, that was barely a few days ago.”

“I know. I left my house after the funeral Friday night, well Saturday morning, it was like 12:30 am.” Lance looks away from Keith, looking up at a single cloud in the sky. “Marco was my oldest brother, he was twenty four, barely four years older than me. I have-” He pauses, taking a breath, “I had three siblings, Marco, Veronica, and Luis. Veronica and Luis are twins, they’re the same age as Pidge, when we picked her up at the gas station, and she told us her age all I could think about was the twins, how I completely left the behind. Taking her back home, seeing her brother and her parents run out to great her, I couldn’t- I couldn’t handle it.”

Keith places his hand back on Lance’s shoulder, a comforting touch. Lance looks at his lap, he’s thankful for the comfort.

“I left because I couldn’t handle being in that house anymore, not without Marco. He was my older brother, my best friend, I told him everything, he taught me everything. Watching Pidge run and hug her own brother it was the same way I used to hug my Marco whenever he came home from college, it was the same way the twins ran up and hugged me when I got home from school last month.”

Lance takes another pause to clear his throat and wipe his eyes. Keith moves his hand from his shoulder to around him completely, letting Lance lean onto him as he begins to talk again.

“I left, Keith. I left the day after the funeral, like a coward. I couldn’t handle being there so I fucking left like an asshole, a terrible boy who doesn’t care about his family. I didn’t tell anyone, I turned off my phone two hours away from home and I haven’t been able to turn it back on. It’s been almost three days, and I haven’t talked to anyone. M-my parents just lost their oldest son and their other leaves without warning, turning off his phone so they can’t call ignoring every text that I’m sure I have! I’m the oldest kid now, I should be there for my family, but I’m not! I abandoned my younger siblings, the ones who need me the most right now, I left my parents right after they need the reassurance of their other children! Parents shouldn’t have to bury their kids and instead of being there to help my family through this time I fucking left! I’m selfish and terrible and I don’t even deserve to go back!”

“Hey! Don’t call yourself that.” Keith says, pulling Lance off his side, both hands on his shoulders, forcing them to look at each other. “You’re not a coward and you’re not selfish.”

“But I left-”

“Yeah, you left, so what? You brother just died Lance, you can’t put so much blame on yourself, this is a life changing tragedy and you’re so young, you can’t be expected to stay at home and just accept it, get over it right after the funeral, no one can do that. He died on Thursday, you left Friday night, you left a day, day and a half, after it happened because you were hurting, and that’s okay. And don’t call yourself selfish, you’re an idiot if you think you are. You’re driving me, a complete stranger you picked up off the side of the road, states out of your way just because.”

“I only picked you up because I didn’t want to go back home.” Lance admits.

Keith rolls his eyes, “how do you explain Pidge then? You went hours out of our way to drop her off at home. You shared a bed with me just to make sure she would be comfortable in her own bed, you gave her advice on how to solve her problems, that it was okay that she ran away, because she’s trying to fix her problems.”

“Sounds like I need to take my own advice.” Lance mumbles.

Keith ignores him, “you drove her home and waited with her until her family got out and made sure she was safe before leaving, even though you clearly were desperate to get out of there. That was anything but selfish, and don’t tell me it was just because you missed the twins, because that doesn’t matter. You’re not a coward for needed to get out after a tragedy struck your family, and you’re definitely not selfish, I’ve known you for what, two maybe three days? You’ve already been one of the most selfless people I’ve ever met.”

Lance leans forward, tucking his head under Keith’s neck and wrapping his arms around him. Keith hugs him back, rubbing his shoulders gently.

“Thank you, Keith.” He whispers into his neck.

“No problem, Lance.” Keith pulls back from the hug and Lance jumps off the car, stretching his back out. “You know what to now?”

Lance nods, “Yeah, right after I get you to where you need to go, I’ll go home, do what I have to do.”

“Good, you want me to drive for a bit?” Keith asks, sliding off the hood.

Lance nods, normally he doesn’t like anyone driving his car, but right now he’s too tired, and he trusts Keith. He tosses him the keys, and walks over to the passenger seat, tucking long legs under Keith’s backpack, and rests his head on the window.

Keith adjusts the seat and mirrors before starting up the engine and driving back onto the road. In the time they’ve been on the side of the road, only a few cars passed them, they have the entire drive to themselves.

 

Keith doesn’t tell Lance what he’s running from.

Lance doesn’t ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment and Kudos please it keeps me alive  
> Lancey Lance’s Jammy Jams is a real playlist on my youtube check it out [Here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv1reEHH85p8HMvjdm7iyh40zveWrHxNI)  
> We’re getting there lads! Next chapter you find out where Keith is headed!  
> You can contact me at [my voltron tumblr Shiroskitten](http://shiroskitten.tumblr.com/)


	5. Monday, June 25th - Afternoon and Evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Before Lance knows it Keith has driven them into actual civilization, after driving in the desert for so long it’s nice to see actual buildings. Lance checks the time, letting his eyes drift to the screen in his car.  
>  7:45 pm. It’s been almost six hours since they dropped Pidge off, no doubt she already texted them something, even if neither have turned on their phones, she doesn’t seem like the type to care. ___

They drive the next stretch in a comfortable silence, Lance not really feeling up for any conversation, not after the talk they had earlier. Keith is fine with it, it’s not tense or uncomfortable in the car, although he does kind of miss Lance’s light hearted banter.

Eventually the gaslight turns on and Keith has to find a way back to civilization to find a gas station. He finds a small town not too far away with a few pumps and a small minimart. Lance lets Keith pump the gas while he goes to use the bathroom. He splashes water in his face and looks at his reflection in the dirty mirror.

He feels much better after his little cry session with Keith, he didn’t ever want to admit what he did to Keith, but after the talk and words of encouragement he knows exactly what to do, he just doesn’t know if he’s ready to part with Keith just yet.

They’ve only known each other for a small amount of time but Lance thinks of Keith as a friend, he’s already seen him at his worse, he doesn’t know if he’s ready to say goodbye to him just yet, but they just got to California, and are only a few hours away from the coast.

He takes a deep breath and immediately regrets it, the gas station bathroom air is not a pleasant scent to fill his nose. He pushes the door open and walks out, Keith leaning on the door to his car.

“Hey, if you want me to drive the last few hours I can, I’m feeling better now.” Lance says, walking up to him.

Keith shakes his head, “it’ll be faster if I do it, I know the way from here.”

“If you’re sure.”

Lance walks over the the passenger seat, after driving non-stop for the past few days it’s actually nice to have someone else take the wheel for once, and Keith seems like a relatively safe driver, even if he is a bit of a speed demon.

Keith starts up the car again and pulls out of the gas station. Lance lifts his feet up and lets them rest on the dash, his long legs making his knees bend right in front of his face, but he doesn’t mind, the position is surprisingly comfortable. 

“Hey, I bought some goldfish crackers yesterday, is there any left?” Keith asks, looking over to Lance.

Lance shuffles through the bags underneath him, pulling it onto his lap. Most of it is filled with wrappers from the other snacks they’ve eaten, but Lance pulls out a half full package of goldfish crackers.

He stuffs it into the cupholder, pulling out one of the empty water bottles and throwing it in the backseat. “I really need to clean this out.” He says mostly to himself.

“We’ll be stopping soon, you can do it then.” Keith says before sticking his hand into the bag, pulling out a handful of crackers and shoving them all into his mouth.

Lance smiles, amused. Keith looks like a hamster with all the crackers shoved into his mouth. He turns back to the window, resting his head on the side, closing his eyes.

 

Before Lance knows it Keith has driven them into actual civilization, after driving in the desert for so long it’s nice to see actual buildings. Lance checks the time, letting his eyes drift to the screen in his car.

7:45 pm. It’s been almost six hours since they dropped Pidge off, no doubt she already texted them something, even if neither have turned on their phones, she doesn’t seem like the type to care.

Keith’s entire demeanor changes as they drive closer to the coast. His eyes are focused, posture straight, hands tight on the wheel as he turns onto a secluded road.

Lance wants to ask where they’re going, but he knows it’s none of his business. He puts his legs down, pulling Keith’s backpack up, digging it out of the plastic bags they got from the gas station. He sits it up on the floor of the car, balancing it against his legs.

As the clock nears eight pm Keith pulls up to a small lake house. It’s a little shabby looking, but well kept for what it’s worth. From where Keith has parked the car in the driveway Lance can see the backyard isn’t a yard at all, it’s all sand that leads straight down into the beach. Lance can see the sunsetting on the ocean behind the house, illuminating a beautiful red-orange glow.

Keith takes the keys out and drops them in the cupholder, taking a deep breath before he turns to Lance. He pulls up his backpack into his lap, taking out a knife wrapped in an old piece of cloth. He grips the handle of it tight before placing it in the pocket of his jacket.

He opens the door and swings his legs out, feeding his right arm through one handle of his backpack.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Lance asks, a bit worried now that there’s a knife involved.

Keith shakes his head silently. He hands the carkeyes back to Lance and leaves the car without a word, shutting the door behind him. Lance sits stiff in the passenger seat, the air tense all around him. 

Lance sits and watches, not willing to leave until he knows Keith is safe.

Keith walks up to the front door, a swinging glass door with a screen behind it. He knocks once and steps back.

A tall man with long black hair with a white streak down the middle opens the door, he looks over Keith before looking behind him, noticing Lance in the car. Lance swallows, dry.

He steps back and lets Keith walk inside his house. Keith looks behind him, a bit shocked that Lance is still in the driveway, a part of him thought Lance would leave once Keith got out of the car, but it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere. He holds one finger up, a single to have him wait.

Lance does as instructed, he doesn’t trust the look of The Man. Keith turns away completely and walks inside. The Man lingers in the door for a moment, eyes locked on Lance before doing the same. As the door swings shut Lance notices The Man only has one arm.

As Lance sits back in his seat the sun fully sets on the horizon in front of him, leaving Lance alone, in the darkness of his car.

Barely a few minutes after Keith left Lance begins to hear shouting from the house, even through the shut doors and windows of his car. It’s screaming, loud but now intelligible, even as Lance attempts to decipher it.

The stars come out as the argument goes on, Lance looks up at the sky, trying to focus on that when something inside the house breaks with a loud crash and suddenly everything stops. Lance becomes very aware of how loud his own breathing is.

It’s only a minute but it feels like hours, Lance can’t take it anymore, he unbuckles his seatbelt and gets out of his car, the keys placed in his jacket pocket as he shuts the door. 

He plans on barging into the house, but before he can get a few feet away from his car the front door swings open.

Keith steps out with red puffy eyes and a frown on his face, The Man has a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it lightly, Lance doesn’t know what to make of it. Keith pushes The Man’s hand off and walks away from him, from both of them.

Lance watches him go, still standing by his car door. The Man walks over to him, now that Lance has a closer look he sees that The Man has a scruffy beard, not one he’s growing on purpose, more like the aftermath of not shaving for a few days. Lance stands up straight as he approaches, not sure what he’s going to say.

“So, you’re the kid that drove my brother across the country?”

Lance blinks,  _ brother _ , that wasn’t what he was expecting at all. “Uh, yeah. I am. The names Lance.”

The Man nods, “yeah, Keith told me. I’m Shiro.” He looks back at Keith standing at the side of his house, back turned to the both of them. “Keith… He’s got a lot of problems, and he’s running away from them, coming here instead of facing them the way he needs to. He can’t always come to me whenever he messes up, I can’t always help him. He’s growing up now, he needs to turn back and face his fears on his own.”

Lance nods as Shiro speaks, knowing it’s almost exactly what he’s doing, trying to lean on his brother with his problem only his brother isn’t there to support him. His eyes flicker to Keith for a moment before going back to Shiro.

“What is he running from?” The words are out of his mouth before he knows it, with the look that flashes across Shiro’s face he immediately regrets it.

“If Keith hasn’t told you himself, he isn’t ready for you to know.”

Lance frowns, but he accepts the answer, after all it was the same for him. “I-I… I’m running too, and I need to face it.” his hands fist in the sides of his jacket, after all this it’s still hard for him to admit that. “Wherever Keith needs to go, I’ll take him.” A small detour on his trip home.

Shiro gives him a soft smile, “I’m sure he’d like that.”

Lance nods and looks back at Keith only to see he’s watching the two of them. He walks over and looks between the two men, a look of fear across his face, worried that whatever Shiro told Lance will make him think different of Keith.

Lance smiles at Keith, pulling his car keys out of his pocket, letting them hang from his index finger through the keyring. “So, where’s the next stop?”

Keith visibly relaxes, smiling back. Shiro puts his hand on Lance’s shoulder, “You two can discuss that later, spend the night here tonight, wherever you’re going, it can wait another night.”

Lance nods, “sounds good to me.” 

“Me too.” Keith says, his voice a bit raw, from all the yelling earlier.

“Come inside, I’ll make warm something up for the two of you and set up the guest room.” Shiro says

Lance takes a look at the beach behind the house, “I’ll meet you guys inside, I want to do something first.”

He turns away from them, shrugging Shiro’s hand off his shoulder as he walks behind the house and onto the sandy beach.

Keith tilts his head, confused, not sure what Lance is doing. Shiro bumps his shoulder with Keith’s, gesturing his head towards the door, for Keith to follow.

Keith shakes it off and follows his brother inside, Lance will come in when he’s ready.

 

Lance stops at the edge of the water, looking out at the pacific ocean in front of him. He’s never seen it before, the only bodies of water he’s seen in person before are the Atlantic ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.

He drops his jacket and toes off his shoes and takes his socks off, rolling up his jeans up as much as they’ll go before beginning to walk again, picking up his pace to a run as his feet splash in the water under him.

It’s cold, much much colder than the water back home, it feels freezing compared to what he’s used to. He digs his toes into the wet sand under him, smiling at the familiar feel. Even across the country he feels most at ease by the ocean.

Lance drops to his knees, fully clothed he ducks his head under the water and pushes off, going deeper. Taking in a mouth of salt water, coming above water to spit it out with a grin.

He flips around and lays on his back, lifting his legs up so he floats, he’s much farther from the shore now, but it feels nice.

He closes his eyes and thinks as he floats around aimlessly, he’ll take Keith wherever he needs to go, wherever his problems are, and then go home, it shouldn’t take more than another couple days, three at the most.

He’ll make sure Keith is okay, the same way he did with Pidge, and then go home, without him. He ignores the way his stomach feels when he thinks he won’t be around Keith much longer, it’s for the best really.

He ducks his head back under, wanting to be alone for a little while longer, just him and the water.

 

Keith sits at the kitchen table while Shiro starts up the stove, figuring he’ll make something quick for the two boys, knowing they must be hungry after their drive.

“You really Hitchhiked from Texas to here?” Shiro starts up the conversation.

Keith looks up and shrugs, “Alabama actually. I got myself there and got a ride with Lance here. Wasn’t a straight shot though, we drove over Texas, and picked up a girl in Oklahoma and took her to Arizona, just dropped her off earlier today actually.”

Shiro turns from where he’s shredding up the vegetables, “you really made that poor kid drive around an entire state just because you didn’t want to risk being recognized?”

Keith stiffens, “it’s not like that, I just asked and he said it was fine, he drove the whole way, I only started driving today. Besides if we didn’t go around Texas we never would have picked up Pidge, who knows what would have happened to her if we didn’t take her home.”

“Pidge? Is that the girl you picked up?”

“Yeah, she was at a gas station, was leaning on Lance’s car when we walked out, we just got her home around 2:30 today, made sure she was safe with her family before we left.”

With the rest of the events that happened after that, dropping Pidge off feels like it was forever ago, but it was only earlier that afternoon.

“How old was she?”

“Fifteen.”

“And she was hitchhiking?” Shiro’s eyes go wide.

“I know, Lance had the same reaction, it’s why we took the detour, made sure she was safe at home. She messed up at some camp she was at, was afraid to go home, ya know.”

“Sound familiar?”

Keith shrinks back in his seat, “she blew up a science project, what happened with me is way different. Besides, Lance got talking to her, gave her the courage to go home.”

Shiro hums, “and Lance?”

“What about him?”

“Nothing, just saying he took a whole detour around a state for you.”

Keith’s cheeks turn a light shade of pink, he turns his nose up, looking into the light, away from his brother. “Shut up. He just didn’t want to go back home either, took a detour to extend the trip is all.”

“Mmhm, whatever you say, Keith. Just saying, he’s pretty cute, and didn’t leave once you got out of the car either, sat there and waited for you, looked like he was ready to come inside himself before we walked out on our own. He’s a keeper.”

Keith opens his mouth to respond when the door opens, both men turn their heads to see Lance dripping wet, his hair has curled a bit, he drops his shoes and places his jacket on the coat rack by the door.

“Did you… Did you go for a swim?” Keith asks.

Lance grins wide and nods, “Yeah. I wanted to see how the ocean here is, if it’s different from the Gulf or Atlantic back home.”

“Is it?” Shiro asks.

Lance nods, “colder, tastes the same though, feels the same.” He runs a hand through his hair, relaxing. “I’m ready for bed now, but do you have a shower I could use?”

Shiro nods, “yeah, down the hall, but eat first, before you two sleep.”  He places a bowl of pasta in front of them along with two plates and forks, “I’ll go set up the spare room, there’s only one bed so you’ll have to share.” He gives Keith a smile.

Lance shrugs, “nothing we haven’t done before.” He says off handedly as he pours himself some pasta.

Shiro looks at Keith for a long moment, his mouth open slightly, he wasn’t expecting that at all, he was trying to force Keith to get close to Lance, but turns out they’re already like that. He turns around and walks down the hall to the spare room.

Keith picks up a plate and pours himself some pasta, taking a mouthful and chewing it. He sighs through his nose happily, it’s been awhile since he had Shiro’s cooking, even something as simple as pasta with a bit of shredded vegetables.

“I can’t believe you swam, fully clothed, in the ocean, just to test the waters.” Keith says, looking over Lance.

He shrugs, “I like the water, other than the temperature difference, it felt like home. It was a nice reminder really.” Lance smiles at the pasta in his plate, his mind clearly somewhere else.

Keith hums and they both finish their dinners pretty quickly after, Lance rushing a bit mostly because he wants to shower, sitting in wet clothes isn’t very comfortable. Keith takes their plates and rinses them off, putting them in the dishwasher so Shiro doesn’t have to later.

“Come on, the shower is down this hallway, next to the bedroom we’ll be sleeping in.” Keith says, already walking there.

Lance follows him, standing in the middle of the bathroom while Keith pulls out a towel for him. He turns and looks at himself in the mirror, for the first time this trip he doesn’t hate the person looking back at him. He calls that progress.

“Here’s a towel, leave your clothes here Shiro and I will wash them and set pajamas out for you, so you don’t have to put wet clothes back on. There’s shampoo is in there and a bar of soap, Shiro has conditioner but he has longer hair so you probably don’t need it.”

Lance nods and takes the towel, “Thanks, Keith.”

Keith smiles back and steps out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Lance turns on the shower to warm up the water and peels off his wet shirt, rolling down his jeans and underwear, kicking them into a pile by the door. 

He steps into the shower once it’s warm and begins to wash up, it feels good, the first shower he’s had in a few days, it’s nice to be under a cleansing spray of water again.

 

Shiro slips into the bathroom once he’s sure Lance is in the shower and grabs the dirty clothes off the floor, leaving dry pajamas on the toilet seat, next to the towel so Lance is sure to see them.

He forced Keith to change as well so he can wash both their clothes. Shiro takes Lance’s socks out of his shoes and his jacket off the coat rack, emptying the pockets first, before he adds it into the load of dirty laundry. 

He puts the load in now, he’ll be awake much earlier than the other two to put it into the dryer, it’ll be done before the two of them wake up.

When he steps out of the laundry room back into the spare bedroom he sees the two boys getting ready for bed, dressed in Shiro’s clothing. They look pretty adorable, the clothes are too big for the both of them, Shiro’s pajama shorts go way past Keith’s knees, and his shirt sleeves go far past Lance’s hands, he has them rolled up. 

Keith is sitting on the bed, cleaning out his backpack, throwing a lot of garbage out into the trash can. Lance is pulling back the blankers, fluffing up the pillow to get under the covers. 

“You two good for the night?” Shiro asks from the doorway.

Keith looks up and nods, “yeah.”

Lance nods, “yeah, thanks.”

“If you get cold, Keith knows where the spare blankets and pillows are. I’ll be up for bit if you need anything.”

“Thank you, but I think I’ll be getting to sleep now, I’m pretty tired.” Lance gives him a small smile.

Shiro smiles back, “Alright. I’ll see you in the morning, good night.”

“Good night.” Lance says back.

Shiro shuts the door and walks away. Lance gets under the covers, tucking himself in pretty well. He rests his head on the pillow and watches Keith finish going through his backpack, putting the wrapped knife back into the front pocket and pulling his fingerless gloves out and placing them next to him on the side table, by the lamp.

“Why do you carry that knife with you?” Lance asks before he can stop himself.

Keith pauses for a moment, his back still to Lance. “It’s my mother's.” He says after a long silence.

“Oh…” It doesn’t exactly satisfy Lance’s curiosity, but with how closed off Keith’s answer was, he doesn't push. “Why do you wear those ugly fingerless gloves?”

Keith picks the gloves back up and turns, throwing them at Lance’s face. “They’re not ugly, shut up.”

Lance squeaks when they hit his nose and throws them back, “I know you listen to 2006 emo music but you don’t have to dress like someone who does.”

Keith rolls his eyes, “I ride a bike, motorcycle that is, I wear it for that. Most falls happen with your palm first, that’s what the gloves are for.” He says as he puts them back on the nightstand.

Lance hums, “now that makes sense, I thought you were just being an edgelord.” He settles back down on the pillow, closing his eyes.

Keith sets his backpack on the floor and turns off the bedside lamp. He pulls back the covers on his side of the bed and lays down, a bit closer to Lance than necessary, but Lance isn’t exactly at the edge of his side either.

“Thank you.” Keith says suddenly, “for taking me here, I mean. For taking me home too, you don’t have to.”

“I want to, really, I do.” Lance tells him, “Don’t worry about it, another day or two away from my family won’t kill me, just give me more time to think of an apology.”

Keith relaxes a bit, “yeah… okay, still, thank you.”

“You’re welcome Keith.” Lance says with a yawn, closing his eyes, snuggling his face into the pillow.

Within moments he’s fast asleep. Keith smiles softly at him, watching him for a minute before he’s pulled into a deep sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearing the end lads just two chapters to go!  
> Comment and Kudos please I love hearing how people feel about my fics   
> You can contact me at [my voltron tumblr Shiroskitten](http://shiroskitten.tumblr.com/)  
> next chapter will be up tomorrow!


	6. Tuesday, June 26th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Lance slips out of the room, careful not to make too much noise, letting Keith sleep. He finds Shiro in the kitchen, he looks like he’s been up for hours, sitting at the kitchen table. There’s another man also in the room, someone Lance doesn’t know, he vaguely recognizes him from a few photos on Shiro’s wall. He’s standing by the granite counter, mixing batter in a metal bowl. ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Assume that Shiro doesn’t have a prosthetic on, when I was writing this I thought it would be more natural if he didn’t wear one while he was comfortable at home, so he only has one arm the entire time.

The next morning Lance wakes up first, he’s on his side, Keith’s arm wrapped around his middle tightly, spooned up behind him. Lance closes his eyes, lets himself be cuddled for a few moments as he wakes up.

Lance starts to shift, slipping out from under Keith’s arms and out of bed. Keith grumbles, reaching out for him. Lance bunches up the blankets under Keith’s arms so he’s still holding something as he sleeps and steps back from the bed.

Keith holds the blankets cold to his chest, relaxing back into a peaceful sleep. Lance turns away and notices his clothes folded on the dresser, Keith’s next to his own, Shiro must have already finished the laundry.

Lance changes as quietly as possible, folding the pajamas Shiro gave him and placing them on the dresser. He pulls his jacket on, putting his hands in his pocket only to feel them empty. He panics for a moment before attempting to think rationally, Shiro washed his jacket as well as the rest of his clothes, he must have took the keys out and left them out. 

Lance slips out of the room, careful not to make too much noise, letting Keith sleep. He finds Shiro in the kitchen, he looks like he’s been up for hours, sitting at the kitchen table. There’s another man also in the room, someone Lance doesn’t know, he vaguely recognizes him from a few photos on Shiro’s wall. He’s standing by the granite counter, mixing batter in a metal bowl.

Shiro’s hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail, he’s reading a paper newspaper, something Lance only sees his father doing. He’s clean shaven, the scruff Lance saw on his face the night before completely gone.

The new man has hair in a similar style to Lance’s own, only a bit lighter, and he has wire glasses that rest on the bridge of his nose.

“Uh, good morning.” Lance says as he walks inside.

The man turns to look at him the same time Shiro looks up from his newspaper, “Good morning, Lance.” Lance looks at him before letting his eyes drift back to the man at the counter, “Oh, this is my fiancé, Adam. You didn’t see him last night he came in this morning. Adam this is Lance, the kid that drove Keith here.” 

Adam smiles gently at Lance, “Nice to meet you, Lance. Thanks for keeping our idiot safe.”

Lance smiles, he likes him already, “Nice to meet you too. Keith’s still asleep, I’m going to go outside and clean out my car if that’s okay. The inside is pretty dirty from the trip, and also from me not cleaning it out since I got it.”

Shiro nods, he stands up and opens a cabinet behind him, pulling out a roll of black garbage bags, ripping off one for Lance, “Take this, your keys are on the table by the front door, I took them out to wash your jacket.”

Lance takes the bag from him, “Thank you, for everything really, the bed, clean clothes, and shower.”

“It’s no trouble Lance, now go clean, I’ll call you in when Keith’s awake and breakfast is done.” Shiro shoos him away.

 

Lance walks out, his car still waiting for him in Shiro’s driveway. It’s filthy on the outside, driving in the desert really did a number on it, dust covering the blue paint job, up to the windows. Lance thinks about asking Shiro for the garden hose to rinse it off, but he’ll be going back through the desert anyway, no point in cleaning off only to dive right back in. 

He opens all the doors to air it out and pulls the trash bag open, grabbing every piece of garbage he finds and shoves it inside. The passenger seat is the dirtiest, wrappers all over the floor and crumbs covering the leather seats.

Most of the garbage in the backseat is from him going to school. It’s energy drink bottles and ripped up paper from past assignments. He shoves everything in the one trash bag and pulls out of the car when he’s done. 

He stands up straight and turn around only to see Keith standing against the door, watching him. Lance shouts, jerking back, holding the trash bag close to his chest.

“Jesus, Keith. You scared me.”

Keith smiles, amused, “I can see that. Startled easily?”

“Maybe, is breakfast ready?”

Keith shakes his head, “almost. Shiro wanted me to give you this to use if you need it.” He holds out a handheld vacuum.

“Oh, thanks. I do need that.” Lance drops the bag on the floor, and takes the vacuum from Keith. “I should be done soon, it’s mostly just the front seats that need it.”

Keith nods and steps back, letting Lance finish up what needs to be done, quickly vacuuming the seats of his car. It only takes a few minutes, it really wasn’t that bad. He stands back up and Keith takes the vacuum from Lance, holding it over the open trash back and emptying out all the dust and crumbs it collected.

He ties off the trash bag and takes it to the large trash can by the garage door and dumps it inside. The two walk back inside together, Shiro has four plates set at the table along with a stack of pancakes with several toppings on the table.

Keith and Lance take the seats across from the other two men and begin filling their plates with pancakes.

“Thanks for breakfast,” Lance says, “and, you know, letting me sleep and shower here.”

Shiro smiles at him from across the table, “no problem Lance, thanks for taking my dumbass brother across the country.”

Keith rolls his eyes, “shut up.”

Adam laughs from across the table and picks up the bowl of sliced strawberries, pushing a few on Keith’s plate, knowing he likes them. Keith smiles at up him, picking one up with his fork and eating it.

They keep conversation going for a while as they eat, Lance eats as much as he can stomach, they’re nothing like his mother’s homemade pancakes he would have every Sunday morning with his siblings, but they’re pretty damn good.

Lance feels comfortable around them, not at all like he’s intruding on family moments, which he’s very grateful for. Lance can tell Shiro and Keith are extremely close, and it’s very clear that Keith loves Adam like he’s his own brother, even if he isn’t married to Shiro, yet.

 

After breakfast Adam makes them stay long enough for him to make some sandwiches and pack them a few other snacks, placed in a paper bag, they’re all easy things to eat with one hand, so they don’t have to stop during their trip.

 

“It’s a long trip where you two are going, you better not try it all in one go, it’s more than twenty hours if you do.” Shiro says to his brother.

Keith nods, normally he would try to do it all in one go, but he doesn’t want to force Lance into driving all night with him, even if they were to take shifts driving or something along those lines.

“Don’t worry, Shiro, we’ll stop for the night.” Keith promises.

“You better.” Shiro squeezes his shoulder before pulling him in for a tight hug.

Keith’s arms come up and wrap around his brother, resting his chin on Shiro’s shoulder, closing his eyes. They hold each other for a moment, Keith’s two arm wrapped around Shiro’s back, hands touching his shoulders while Shiro’s arm holds his lower back close to him.

Eventually the two break from each other and go outside to see Adam and Lance leaning against Lance’s car. Lance grins when the two of them walk out, holding up his car keys.

“You ready, Keith?”

Keith nods, “yeah, lets go.” 

He walks over and gives Adam a tight hug goodbye. Lance skips over and hugs Shiro as one last thank you before he gets in his car, stomach full of the pancakes from breakfast and warm from all the hugs.

Aside him Keith buckles his seatbelt and shifts, getting comfortable in the passenger seat next to him as Lance pulls out of Shiro’s driveway and onto the main road once again. 

The lunch Adam packed them sits in a paper bag on the floor of his backseat, not to be touched until they’re hungry for a late lunch or early dinner, since they’re leaving at 10:30 in the morning.

Keith directs Lance out of Shiro’s main road and any time he needs to make a turn, it gets quiet after Lance gets on the freeway, Keith not needing to direct Lance for a while, there’s nothing but the radio playing between them.

Lance knows it’s going to take them more than twenty hours to get to wherever they’re headed, Keith still hasn’t said anything about it, and Lance hasn’t asked. Keith will open up when he’s ready.

They sit in a comfortable silence for a few hours, they’ll say something to each other here and there, but for the most party they’re quiet, and it’s okay like that.

 

After around four hours Keith blurts out, “It started last year, what I’m running from.” 

It’s completely random, Lance wasn’t expecting it at all, but he knows it’s the start of his story, and that it’s going to be a long one. He stays quiet, sparing him a glance away from the road.

“I was twenty, met some bad people. The biggest one was Sendak, Shiro knew him, when he lived with us in Texas, he’s a bad guy, part of a bad gang, The Galra. I knew they were bad, my mom and a bunch of my uncles were part of it, born into it really, but I started talking to them anyway, knowing everything that’s wrong with them, knowing the risks and what they do to people, like a fucking idiot.” 

“You’re not an idiot.” Lance says on instinct.

“I was then.” Keith says, continuing before Lance can respond, “I would sneak out a bunch, the upstairs bathroom in my house made it pretty easy, I’d ride my bike with them, doing patrols or whatever they had me do. They called me a halfling, because my mom born into them, but my dad never was. Shiro’s my half brother on my dad’s side, they know I’m close to him, so he’s the person to get at when they want something from me that I didn’t want to do, threaten to hurt him, but half a year ago Shiro moved away after he lost his arm in a bad motorcycle accident, so they started to talking about anyone in my family, my parents or uncles any time I so much as thought about leaving The Galra.”

Lance frowns, he doesn’t how this story goes but from then way this is starting and the way Lance knows it ends, with Keith in his car, he knows it’s going to be a bad one. He turns down the radio so he can hear him better and keeps his eyes on the road so Keith doesn’t get nervous with Lance staring at him while he talks.

“Anyway,” Keith continues, “they got me to be involved in a lot of bad shit, I mean, I never killed anyone, or witnessed something like that, but I know they did, they had to have, some groups would come back to the base just-” He pauses, swallowing. “They would come back with ripped clothes, bruised knuckles and and bloody hands, there’s no way it was  _ just  _ fights that ended like that, it had to be more.”

Lance looks away from the road for a moment to glance at Keith again, he has tears pooling at the bottom of his eyes, threatening to spill. Lance looks back to the road and reaches over and takes Keith’s hand, holding it gently in the other boys lap.

“What happened, Keith?” He asks, softly.

Keith squeezes his hand tight, using his other to wipe his eyes. “It happened on a Friday, they sent me on a mission with a general and a few of their other members, all higher up than me in the ranks, it was a small group, four of us plus Sendak, our general for the group. It was supposed to be a quick and easy deal, we had the Quintessence, we were going to trade it off to one of our dealers for some cash, but it didn’t end well.”

“Quintessence?” Lance asks.

“Oh, it’s a drug. It’s kind of new to the marker, The Galra have a monopoly on it right now, they’ve branched out to all of Texas, and they’re trying to pass it to nearby states. It’s a strong hallucinogenic.”

“Oh.”

“They deal with a lot of bad shit, Lance.”

“Yeah… So, the deal, what happened?”

Keith takes another breath and sits back, keeping Lance’s hand in his lap, “The deal, yeah. So they sent me out with Sendak and a few others to a warehouse, a quick deal, god it was supposed to be a quick deal, but I-I don’t know, the dealers must have had a problem with the prices or something, but it went real bad real fast. We were fine, they put me in charge of passing the package off, I don’t know why, but the other group did the same, their lowest member had the case of money, we showed each other what was in the cases before closing them back up. One moment I was ready to hand it off and the next the guy slipped the case back into the duffle wrapped around his body and tried to swipe the package from my hands.”

Lance gasps and Keith squeezes his hand for reassurance, taking a few moments before he continues.

“On instinct i threw the package back to Throck, one of the other members in the mission with me, and pulled the knife from my side at the guy. I heard Sendak yelling behind me and half a second later each member of our group was attacked by one of theirs. I-I managed to knock the guy with me out pretty quickly, I managed to step out of his way and twist my knife around and hit him in the nape of his neck with the back of it and slipped out of the warehouse in the chaos of the fight. I stole a bike from the other group and drove as far and as fast as I could go east, then ditched the bike in Louisiana and bought a bus ticket in cash further east until I got to Alabama, and then I found you. Before you ask, they know Shiro’s in California, so I went east first to confuse them, and it worked.”

Lance turns on his hazard lights and pulls over, parking on the side of the interstate, I-10. Keith is still holding his hand, as tight as he can, Lance can feel his hand turning a bit white from how hard his grip is, but doesn’t say anything. 

Lance looks over at him, letting his eyes linger, getting a real look at him for the first time since he started this story, he looks about as awful as he sounds. Keith’s eyes are puffy, eyelashes wet with tears that have yet to fallen, his nose and cheeks are red with few tear tracks trailing down to his neck.

Lance frowns, seeing Keith in this state, he’s so used to seeing a near emotionless expression on his face lost in thought, sometimes a small smile would find itself there, but never like this, never such raw emotion. He squeezes Keith’s hand back, attempting comfort, it’s a small gesture that Keith appreciates.

“Okay,” Lance starts, “so you fucked up pretty back, like way worse than me or Pidge, I mean you got caught up in a  _ gang  _ and like  _ real  _ drug shit, that’s awful.”

Keith sinks back in his seat, loosening his grip on Lance’s hand only for Lance to tighten his own. 

“So what?” Lance continues, “you made some mistakes, some pretty awful ones too, but you got out when it got bad, well not totally out, but escaped when you had the chance, and you did the only think you knew to do, go to your older brother for comfort and support, hell that’s what I did when I had any minor problem. Shit happens, Keith, I don’t think any different of you, and now you’re going home to face the problem head on. You mom and uncles can help you with this, it sounds like they’ve been in the same position as you, and you’re going to fix the problem.”

Keith nods, he sniffles and lets go of Lance’s hand to wipe his face and neck. Lance opens the center console and pulls out some tissues and hands him a few, Keith takes them gratefully and wipes his eyes before blowing his nose and throwing them away in the plastic bag between his feet. 

“Thank you, Lance.” Keith looks up at him.

Lance smiles, a bright grin that makes something warm curl in Keith’s chest , “No problem, man, you did the same for me.”

Keith looks into his eyes for a moment, a soft blue, like the ocean they just left behind. He doesn’t think about it, he acts purely on instinct, Keith leans over the space between their two seats and kisses him.

Lance makes a small surprised squeak in response, but quickly kisses back, leaning in before Keith can pull away. Keith pushes forward, leading the kiss, he rests one arm between them while Lance’s hand comes up and cups Keith’s cheek.

As Lance gets pushed further back his elbow hits the center of his steering wheel, honking the horn, startling the both of them.

Lance jerks back, his hands going to Ten and Two on the steering wheel, sitting up with his back straight, Keith pushes himself away, his side plastered against the passenger side door, eyes straight ahead, looking out the windshield,

They sit there in a flustered silence for a few moments, neither knowing what to say to each other after that. Eventually Keith clears his throat, getting Lance’s attention.

“So, you want me to drive for a bit?”

Lance nods, a bit too quickly, “yeah, yeah sure.” He unbuckles his seatbelt and the two of them switch places.

They don’t talk about it.

 

They have to stop for gas an hour after their roadside talk, Keith merges off the highway and pulls into the closest gas station he sees, parking in front of the pump and turning off the car.

Lance unbuckles his seat belt, “I got it, you can keep driving though, if you’d like, and get the bag from the back, I’m hungry.”

Keith nods, he stays in the driver's seat, he likes driving, and now that Lance is trusting him enough to drive his car, he’s going to take advantage of it. He unbuckles his seatbelt so he’s able to reach into the backseat and grab the bag of food Adam packed them.

Keith pulls out a wrapped sandwich and rests it on his lap as well as a bag of strawberries that Adam put in and a few granola bars. He sets the bag down on the passenger seat for Lance when he comes back in.

Lance comes in a few minutes later while Keith is biting into his sandwich, “Hey, I bought some water.” he slips inside, pulling the bag of food onto his lap. 

Keith hums, his mouth full of sandwich, he buckles his seatbelt on and turns on the car on, seeing the tank full. Lance digs into the bag as Keith pulls out of the gas station, he pulls out his own sandwich along with a bag of cheez-its before setting it down, there’s another two sandwiches along with another few bags of chips and plenty of granola bars. 

“Thanks.” Keith says, once he swallowed his massive bite. “So, I’m thinking we’ll stop for the night once we actually get into Texas, that way if we get up early enough the next morning we won’t have to drive the whole entire day.”

Lance nods, “yeah, man, whatever you think will get us there the fastest, I don’t really know the way, so.”

“Yeah… We’re going around outside Killeen, Texas, if you have any idea where that is. It’s in the desert, outside of the city.”

Lance hums, “yeah. No clue. Is it in the desert like a ranch house?”

“Kind of? It’s two stories.”

“Keith,” Lance looks up at him, taking a deep breath, “are you a cowboy?”

Keith laughs, ducking his head for a moment before lifting it to look at the road, “I, it is a possibility that my father owns a few cattle and some horses, and we might have some chickens.”

Lance grins, letting out a loud laugh, “that’s amazing! You’re a cowboy! You’re better than a cowboy because you ride a motorcycle and shit, you’re literally a cowboy with a double life, that’s like, the best movie plot ever.”

Keith rolls his eyes, “I think you just watch too many movies.” He says, throwing the wrapping of his sandwich at him.

Lance dodges it, still giggling, “Nah, no such thing.” He says through a mouthful of his own sandwich.

They talk for a bit after that, bantering back and forth, making sure to throw all the wrappers they have in the plastic garbage bag between Lance’s feet. 

“Hey,” Keith starts, “earlier you said ‘real drug shit’ when I was talking about Quintessence, what did you mean by real drugs?”

“Hm?” Lance looks up, “Oh, I was just talking about how you got into dealing like hard drugs and stuff, but like I go to a pretty liberal college, I smoked weed before my English final.”

Keith lets out a laugh, “Lance, oh my god!”

“Hey, the final was to write a creative essay in class, I totally aced it. Literally, I got a ninety five on it.”

“What did you lose points on?”

“Grammar, apparently getting high may help me get a bit more creative than usual, but it doesn’t fix the fact that I can’t spell for shit.”

They don’t switch off driving, Keith is comfortable in the driver’s seat and Lance likes the break, he doesn’t actually like driving all that much, but he also doesn’t like when other people control his things when he doesn’t trust them, but now, after all the time he’s spent with Keith, he trusts him.

They play their road trip games again, the both of them more relaxed and smiling with each other, the weight of the world is off their shoulders, now that the other knows what they were running from, it’s easier to talk and play around.

Before they realize it hours have passed by, and they’re driving in the dark. Keith looks at the digital clock, it’s almost ten at night.

“We should stop for the night, sleep early so we can leave early.”

Lance looks up, glancing at the time and nods, “yeah, sounds good to me, get off at the next exit, we can get a motel for the night.”

Keith nods and merges off, there isn’t that many people on the highway with him, but it’s not empty, not like the first night Lance drove, where he was alone on the highway at three in the morning.

They pass by a large sign, ‘WELCOME TO EL PASO, TEXAS’, soon after that there’s a Motel 6. It’s similar enough to the other two motels they’ve stayed in, a parking lot full of potholes and a large one story building with the same uniform doors, numbers hanging on by a weak nail above a small peephole. 

Keith parks the car and pulls up his backpack, putting his arm through the strap while Lance picks up the trash bag and takes it out with him. They walk to the office in the center of all the rooms.

Keith holds the door open and lets Lance walk in front of him, going straight to the front desk where an older woman with graying hair sits at desktop computer that looks about as old as Lance.

“Hello, do you have an rooms available?” Lance asks, getting straight to the point.

She looks the two of them over before going back to the computer, scrolling for a few moments before saying, “I have a queen or two twins, take your pick.”

“Queen.” Keith says, his back is turned, he’s looking over the few pieces of artwork on the wall, painted photos of horses, a sunset with a rustic looking barn in the front, and a line art of telephone wires.

“Queen.” Lance repeats.

She gives them a curt nod and they pay for the room before she hands off the key, telling him where their room is. They thank her and walk out together, Keith leading the way, unlocking the door.

The room is identical to the previous two rooms they’ve shared, only instead of two twins with a small table between them, it’s one large bed with tables on either side of the bed. Keith walks over to the window, setting his backpack on the small chair beside it, when he turns Lance is there, his face inches away from Keith’s.

Keith pauses, he’s about to ask what he’s doing when Lance kisses him, a rushed push of his head forward, their noses nearly bumping. Keith breaths out through his nose and kisses back, putting a hand on Lance’s cheek, running his thumb gently under his eye to help relax him. It’s a slow, soft movement of their lips against each other, Keith begins to walk, never breaking the kiss, turning them around and pulling Lance with him until the back of his legs hit the edge of the bed.

He bends his knees and sits, Lance bends forward, following his lips for another few soft kisses before he pulls back. “Hi.”

“Hey.” Keith smiles back, “we should sleep.”

Lance nods, pecking Keith’s lips one last time before standing up straight and pulling his jacket off. Keith follows his lead and the two of them strip down to their underwear, Lance takes their clothes, hanging up their jackets on the provided coat rack and folding their shirts and pants, placing them in neat pile on the table.

Keith gets under the covers, lifting the blankets up for Lance to slip under them with him. Lance kisses him again, it’s clear it’s something he really likes to do, Keith isn’t complaining. They lay down, keeping everything soft and sweet until the two of them fall asleep, cuddled close.

They still don’t talk about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re wondering why I didn’t do a flashback for Keith, this is more of Lance’s story not Keith’s so I’d rather him tell the story to Lance than give a flashback.  
> Comment and Kudos please I need attention to function  
> You can contact me at [my voltron tumblr Shiroskitten](http://shiroskitten.tumblr.com/)  
> The Last Chapter will be up tomorrow!


	7. Wednesday, June 27th and Thursday, June 28th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The next morning they wake up early, getting dressed in a comfortable silence and driving away all before seven am. Lance drives while Keith navigates, he’s familiar enough with his way, he’s made this drive with his father a few times when visiting Shiro after he moved. ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the last chapter of this fic. Before you guys read it I want to give Special thank yous to three specific friends  
> Amber, she doesn’t even watch Voltron but she let me talk about this fic since I had the idea in April to now when I’m finishing posting this in November, she encouraged this from the beginning when it was a whole ass mess and I didn’t even have an idea for what Keith was running from.  
> Em, I forced her to watch Voltron just so she could understand my rambling about this fic and I’m extremely grateful she puts up with my bullshit because there is a lot of it. and she even made this amazing [spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0sdkUyGCmZdAXNlYQ3ZOe2) for this fic  
> And lastly, Veronica, I also forced them to watch Voltron and I drag them into all of my other hyperfixations, including Cobra Starship, One Direction, Supernatural, and many, Many, others. They encourage me to write and read all my fics, even the ones written for things they’re not (yet) into like my Try Guys fics.  
> And thank all of YOU for reading this! I hope you enjoy the last chapter, I had a lot of fun writing this fic, and I’m happy all of you read all the way through to the ending

The next morning they wake up early, getting dressed in a comfortable silence and driving away, all before seven am. Lance drives while Keith navigates, he’s familiar enough with his way, he’s made this drive with his father a few times when visiting Shiro after he moved.

Their breakfast is the leftover food Adam packed them, finishing off the rest of the food in the bag, everything in there is still edible, if a little warm after being in a hot car the entire day before, and the following night.

Keith falls asleep in the passenger seat as the sun crawls higher in the sky, Lance finds it a bit adorable. He turns the radio down so it plays softly in the background, and he drives humming along softly.

Keith wakes up as Lance is merging off the highway, the gas light turned on a few minutes ago. Keith stretches, cracking his back as best he can in the seat.

“I can drive, if you want to switch.” Keith says through a yawn.

“Sure you’re not too tired?” Lance glances at him.

Keith nods, “yeah, I’ll be fine, the nap set me for the rest of the day.”

Lance parks in front of a pump and turns off the car, “then sure, you can drive. I’m going to throw away the garbage.”

Keith nods and steps out of the car, he locks the nozzle of the pump in the tank and steps back to stretch, properly getting the kinks out of his neck and back while Lance takes out all the trash from the floor and cup holders. He returns with another couple bottles of water to leave in the car and gets comfortable in the passenger seat.

Keith slips in the car once he’s done at the pump and pulls out of the gas station and back onto the freeway. Lance pulls out the CD folder and begins to look through it before settling on one, pulling it out of the sleeve.

“I think it’s about time you listen to some real music.” He holds up the CD.

Keith looks over and groans at the sight “Lance, please no, can we please just go back to My Chem?”

Lance pushes the CD into the player, “no, we can not, it’s time we listen to some Cobra Starship.” He presses play on the first song of  _ Hot Mess  _ and the car is filled with their music.

Lance bops along with it, singing every word, trying, and failing, to harmonize with their lead singer, Gabe Saporta. The whole thing makes Keith laugh, he can’t look at most of what’s going on, his eyes on the road, but in his peripheral vision he sees Lance’s hands gesturing wildly, and he can hear his wonderful voice singing alone, getting every word right.

The second song on the record plays and Keith’s head whips around, “is this the THX theme?”

Lance laughs, “yeah, it is, shhhh, listen to the first few lyrics of the song.”

Keith does as told, listening to the first couple lyrics, his eyes immediately widening as he processes them,  _ “You can ride to the top but you can’t ride on my cock, yeah!” _

“Lance, what the fuck is this band?”

Lance laughs at his expression, “this whole band is a shit show, they had this little web series they did in like 2009 called Cobra Cam and it’s crazy, like the whole thing is wild, Pete Wentz makes a bunch of appearances, Patrick Stump too. They were ahead of their time really.”

“If that’s what you want to call it, I’m just going to say crazy, and better left in the past.”

Lance rolls his eyes and turns up the volume as the chorus comes around, singing along loudly, and if he does it just to hear Keith’s laugh again, no one else has to know.

The two of them pick up the road trip game where they left off the day before, playfully arguing over little things, like what the license plate in front of them really says. They barely notice the late morning turning into early afternoon.

Around three in the afternoon there’s a lull in their conversation, a comfortable silence in the car, there are no other cars around them, and neither boy feel like forcing a conversation. Lance is watching the desert outside his window, focusing on the passing landscape.

He turns his head to look at Keith, noticing his grip on the steering wheel is significantly tighter than before, and sits up straight.

“Keith, you okay?”

Keith looks over and swallows before answering, “yeah. I’m fine.”

Lance frowns, “are we getting close?”

He nods, “yeah, it shouldn’t be long now.”

Barely twenty minutes after that short conversation Keith makes an odd left down a small dirt road that leads them to a nice looking, well kept, two story house with a large red barn behind it. There are acres of land behind it, Lance can’t see where the fence around their property ends. 

Keith parks the car in front of the house and pulls his backpack up onto his lap, digging through the front pocket. He pulls out the wrapped knife and holds it in his hand, Lance remembers that, he almost forgot about seeing it two nights ago, when they were in front of Shiro’s house.

Keith holds it out, placing it in the palm of Lance’s hand, “If I’m not out in fifteen minutes, take this knife and come into the house.”

Lance’s eyes widen, and he nods his head, “O-Okay.” If he wasn’t worried now, he definitely is now.

Keith gives him a small smile, leaning over and pecking his cheek gently before he opens the door and leaves the car. Lance watches him walk up to the front door of the house, backpack slung over his right shoulder, take a deep breath, and push the door open.

There isn’t any shouting this time around, the way it was when Keith went to Shiro’s, but the silence is even more worrying. There’s a pit in Lance’s stomach, he can’t hear anything other than the sound of his own breathing.

He counts to himself, keeping track of every second that goes by, waiting until exactly fifteen minutes before he opens the car door and makes his way to the front door of the house. He holds up Keith’s knife in his fist, he pulled down the cloth wrapping so it only covers the handle, and takes a deep breath before kicking down the door screaming.

The scene in front of him is not one he expected, to the right of the foyer is a small dining room, and in that dining room Keith is sitting at a table, along with a man who looks remarkably like Shiro, only much older, a woman who is near identical to Keith, and a few other men, all of them dressed similarly. 

Lance flushes and slowly lowers his arm, the knife hanging by his side in a loose grip. Keith pushes away from the table and goes over to Lance, taking the knife from him.

“Sorry, I guess I should have come out and told you. Thank you, for doing as I asked.” Keith says softly.

Lance nods, “yeah… yeah, no problem.”

Keith turns to table and points at each person sitting at the table, “This is my dad, Dallas” He gestures to the man that looks like an older Shiro, “ my mom, Krolia” Lance could have guessed that one, Keith is a spitting image of her, “that’s Kolivan, Thace, Ulaz, Antok, and Regris.” He points at each of the older men sitting at the table, one of them clearly older than the rest.

Lance nods, “Hi… I’m Lance.”

“We know.” Krolia says, leaning back in her seat, “Keith told us you drove him here, he failed to mention that you were still outside.”

“Or that you had his knife.” Thace, Lance remembers, adds.

“I was getting to that, there were more pressing matters to get into first.” Keith slips the knife in his back pocket.

“Does he know about this pressing matters?” Kolivan speaks up, raising an eyebrow.

“Most of it, I explained it on our way here.” Keith says.

Lance shifts his weight from one foot to the other, he feels awkward, and intruding on a serious matter that Lance feels like he shouldn’t know anything about. Dallas makes eye contact with Krolia across the table, they seem to have a silent conversation for a few moments.

He stands up and walks over to Lance and Keith, placing a hand on Lance’s shoulder. “Why don’t we go outside, let them talk, sort this out.” He says to Lance.

Lance looks to Keith who nods, urging him to go. “Yeah, we can do that.” 

They step away from the group, going out the front door where Lance walked through. Dallas leads him away from the house, towards the barn where Lance notices another smaller building, realizing it’s a chicken coop.

“Wow, you have like, a real farm.” Lance says, seeing cattle in the distance, grazing on a small amount of grass.

“Yeah, I sure do.” He lifts his hat up, running his fingers through his hair before setting it down atop his head again, “So, Keith told us you picked him up in Alabama and took him all the way to the west coast, and took him all the way back here, any reason why?”

Lance gives him a sheepish smile, “I’m running away from my own problems, I took him to the west coast to get away from home, and taking him back here is on the way back anyway, figured I could help him before I deal with my own problems. I need to go back soon, I’d love to stay longer, see the rest of the farm, but I should leave now, so I can make it home by tomorrow.”

“You sure, Krolia and I wouldn’t mind having you stay with us, and I’m sure Keith would love to have you spend the night here, and I’d like to get to know you better.” He walks closer to the stables, away from the house.

Lance sighs, “I’d like that too, but I can’t. I really should leave soon, I have to get back home as soon as I can.”

He frowns,  “well, if you’re sure about it.” He pushes open the door to the stables and leads Lance inside.

The topic is dropped and Dallas introduces him to all the horses in the stable, as well as the rest of the animals on his farm. Lance holds a chicken, and it’s the best moment of his life, and almost makes him consider staying forever.

After an hour Keith meets him outside, finding him sitting in the pen with a calf in his lap, “Having fun there?” He asks with an amused look.

“I’m stealing your cow, she’s mine forever now. I’m going to smuggle her in my car and take her to Tampa with me.”

Keith’s smile falters, “yeah… you’re leaving soon?”

“Yeah… I should get going, I don’t want to stop, I want to go straight home and see my family.” Lance looks down at the calf in his lap.

“Well you can’t drive all the way to Tampa right now, you’ll fall asleep at the wheel, and I know you won’t want to stop, stay here for a bit, take a nap, eat a meal, then leave.”

Lance looks up, “you’re okay with that?”

“Yeah, of course, you can nap in my bed, come on let’s go.” He reaches out to help Lance stand up, “leave the cow behind.” He adds as an afterthought.

Lance pushes the calf off his lap, leaning in to kiss her forehead softly before taking Keith’s hands and pulling himself up.

“Bye Kaltenecker.” 

“You named her?” Keith laughs, leading him out of the pen.

He nods, “yes, and I love her, and one day I’ll be back to steal her away from you, because I love her.”

Keith laughs, taking him back to the house, they pass by his family still sitting at the table, this time Dallas is there, talking with the rest of them, catch up on what he missed while he was with Lance outside.

Lance follows Keith upstairs, the floorboards creak under their feet as Keith leads him upstairs to his bedroom. It’s a little messy as he walks inside, but it’s exactly the way Keith left it, and that alone makes Keith feel a bit better, his parents didn’t go through his things while he was gone.

Lance sits down on Keith’s bed, taking a look around his room. There’s a large map of the area pinned onto a cork board above a desk, on top of which is a closed laptop, along with notebooks scattered around with several pens and pencils.

There’s a few pieces of art hung up, all of which looks like it’s been ripped from sketchbooks, they’re mostly horror drawings taped onto the wall. Lance wonders how Keith can sleep at night with those watching over him.

“Sorry if my dad gave you a hard time out there, you two were alone for a while.” Keith says, grabbing Lance’s attention.

“Hm?” Lance looks away from the wall, back at Keith, “No, he was fine, showed me around the farm and stuff, I met your horses and cows, which was cool. He just got me out of the house so you and everyone could talk alone, I didn’t need to be there for that. Were all those guys related to you?”

Keith shakes his head, “no, not all of them. Thace, Ulaz, Antok, and Regris are just really close friends of my parents, but blood or not they’re basically my uncles, I call them that anyway.”

“What about Kolivan?” 

“Kolivan is my grandfather, my mom’s dad, but I never called him that when I was younger, he’s always been just Kolivan to me, he never liked being called Grandpa or anything like that.”

“Okay, don’t take this the wrong way, but your grandfather is like, kinda hot.”

Keith blinks, he takes three swift steps over and pushes Lance down on the bed. Lance laughs, tipping his head back, his legs are still swinging over the edge, but now he has Keith on top of him.

“Don’t talk about him like that, he’s like, almost seventy years old.”

“Jeff Goldblum is sixty six and he’s a whole ass snack, Harrison Ford is mid seventies and he can still get it too, I’m just being honest.”

“You’re being gross.” Keith says, but it’s with a light laugh.

He rolls off of Lance and lays down next to him, on his back, looking up at the blank ceiling.

“You gonna stay with me?” Lance asks.

“If you want I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep, I still have some stuff I need to talk about with my mom and uncles.”

“I’d like that. It’s hard, you know, falling asleep alone. When I was younger I used to- I would crawl into Marco’s bed when I couldn’t sleep, it was easier than going to my parent’s room.”

Keith smiles softly, turning to look at Lance, “That’s really sweet.”

“Yeah, he was an amazing older brother.”

There’s a moment of silence, it’s not awkward, just quiet. Lance blinks and sits up, wiping his tears away with his jacket sleeve, sniffling.

“I never got to tell him, Marco I mean.” Lance says quietly.

Keith sits up, making a noise of confusion, his hand move to touch Lance’s, “tell him what?”

“That I like boys.” Lance takes a deep breath, his hand flips under Keith’s holding it back. “I knew he would accept me, and I was going to tell him before summer was over, but I never got the change. I hated keeping secrets from him, but there was just always that underlying fear that he wouldn’t accept me or love me anymore. This is such a big part of myself and I wasn’t ready to tell him just yet, and now I’ll never get the chance to.”

Keith frowns, “your brother loved you, Lance, if you had gotten the chance to tell him about your sexuality he would have accepted you, from everything you told me about Marco it sounds like he would have supported you through anything, hell if you killed someone he probably would have helped you hide the body, if he wasn’t already your accomplice.”

That earns a small laugh from Lance, “you’re right about that, we were definitely ride or die with each other, same as the twins.

Keith presses a soft kiss to Lance’s cheek, just under his eye, “You shouldn’t worry so much about things you can’t change. You won’t be able to move on if you keep looking at the past.”

Lance nods and turns his head to look at Keith, giving him a weak smile, “yeah, you’re right. Thanks, Keith.”

Keith smiles, “hey, you’d do the same for me, now come on, let’s get you in bed.” 

They sit up and Keith pulls back the covers on the bed, letting Lance get in first before slipping under the covers next to him. Once Keith is settled under the covers Lance clings to him, tucking his head under Keith’s chin, his arms wrapped around his upper body.

“I wish you could have met him. He would have loved you.” Lance whispers.

Keith closes his eyes and presses a kiss to Lance’s hair, he doesn’t know how to reply to that, but it doesn’t matter, Lance is asleep moments after he says it.

 

Lance wakes up hours later, he’s alone in the bed, but not in the room. He stretches his arms and rubs his eyes before sitting up, letting out a yawn. Keith is sitting at his desk, typing on his laptop.

He turns when he hears Lance shuffles and smiles, seeing him sitting up. “Morning sleeping beauty.”

“Hey, what time is it?”

“Eleven pm, you slept for a while.” Keith says, he went to sleep around five, sleeping straight until eleven is six hours of sleep. 

“Damn, I must have been tired.”

“Yeah, we did get up early, and you didn’t have a nap the way I did. Come on downstairs, you should eat before you go anywhere.” Keith walks over, pulling Lance up off his bed.

Lance follows him down, straightening his hair out from the bed head he had as he goes downstairs and into the kitchen. Keith sits him down at the small kitchen table and warms him up a plate of food.

“My mom and dad are outside, on the porch, and I packed you a bag of snacks so you don’t have to stop anywhere for food, and we put gas in your car so you have a full tank now, turns out your car takes the same kind of gas as our lawnmower.”

Lance blinks, his sleepy brain taking in a lot of information at once, “Oh, thanks, you didn’t have to do that.”

Keith sets the plate of food in front of him along with a fork and napkin, letting Lance eat, “it was no problem, more of a thank you, really, for taking me to Shiro, and then bringing me back home.”

Lance smiles and takes a bite of the food in front of him, they make small talk while he eats, going back and forth with small stories about home. Keith tells him about the wolf that visits them every once in a while, he never tries to eat their livestock, but he does play with their sheepdogs.

“You have a literal wolf that comes in and plays with your herding dogs instead of trying to eat the sheep?” Lance asks, finding that hard to believe.

Keith nods, pulling out his phone to show Lance a few pictures of the sheepdogs Lance met earlier. He’s turned on his phone again, now that he’s home with his family he has no reason to keep it off. The photos are of the two dogs running around with a canine much larger than the two dogs. Lance sets his fork down and takes the phone from him, scrolling through each picture.

“This is crazy, I mean you have a whole chicken coop the wolf could be raiding, but he’s playing tug o'war with your sheepdogs.” He says, in awe.

Keith sits back and smiles, “yeah, he’s really cute, and he’s friendly with the other animals. I haven’t tried to pet him or anything, that would be stupid, and very dangerous, even though he looks really soft.”

“He looks like he needs a hug, but that’s a terrible idea, he’s still a wild animal.” Lance hands the phone back and finishes off the meal.

“Yeah, I named him Cosmo, we see him pretty often now, only at night though.” Keith takes Lance’s empty plate and rinses it off, placing it in the sink to be dealt with later.

Lance stand up and Keith leads him outside, Keith’s parents are sitting on the porch swing when the two of them walk out the front door. There’s a cat curled up at the edge, by the steps, it reminds Lance just how many animals they probably have.

Krolia looks up and smiles softly, “Headed home, Lance?”

Lance nods, “Yeah, thank you for letting me sleep here, and for the meal.”

“Thank you for bringing my son home safely.” She tells him sincerely.

She stands up and gives him a tight hug, they didn’t spend much time together while Lance was here, not as much as Lance spent with Dallas, but it’s clear she’s grateful that Lance helped Keith come home, by not only providing him a ride, but giving him the courage to come back.

Lance pulls away from the hug and turns to Dallas, holding out his hand for him to shake. The older man lets out a laugh, light and airy, he takes Lance’s hand and pulls him in for a hug.

“Don’t be so formal, Lance.” Dallas pats his back a few times, a tight dad hug, “You’ll come back to visit, yeah? Kaltenecker will be very upset if you don’t.” 

Lance looks at Keith for a moment, Keith gives him a smile and Lance ducks his head with his own grin, “yeah, I’d like to.”

Dallas smiles softly at the two of them, “have a safe drive home, Lance, I know you want to make it all in one go, but it’s a long drive from here to Florida, if you need to stop, you stop, and check in whenever you have to put gas so we’re not worried about you.”

“I will.” Lance promises, it means he’s going to have to turn his phone back on, and face all the missed calls, texts, and voice messages, but he’ll just have to deal with that.

Keith takes Lance down the driveway to where Lance’s car is parked while Krolia and Dallas go back inside. Lance opens the drivers side door and sits down, he picks up his phone and turns it on, setting it in his lap while it loads every missed message he has.

Keith stands above him, resting his elbow on the top of the car door. “The snacks we packed are already in the back seat…” He starts, only to trail off, not really knowing what to say after that.

Lance takes a deep breath, gaining confidence before blurting out, “I like you. I mean, it’s only been a few days since I met you, like less than a week I think, and I don’t really know that much about you, and I totally learned more about you in the twenty hour car ride here than I did the first two days I knew you, but I like you, like I really like you, and I don’t want to lose touch.”

He says it all in one breath, he isn’t looking at Keith either, his eyes are deliberately staring at his lap so he isn’t forced to see Keith’s reaction.

Keith relaxes, smiling softly, “I don’t want to lose touch either.”

Lance’s head shoots up, looking the other boy in his eyes, “yeah?”

“Yeah. I like you, like, I really like you.” He teases Lance a bit, repeating what he said, “but seriously, you’re sweet, you’re nice, you’re cute, and you’re a really good kisser too.”

Lance grins, “thank you.” 

He laughs, “I can give you my number, text me, maybe you could visit me here some time, I could teach you how to work the farm, or I could visit you in Tampa, you could show me the best beaches there.”

“I’d love to do that, all of those things.” Lance nods eagerly.

He lifts up his phone and ignores every missed message, he won’t answer them, he’s better of staying silent until he’s in his house. He opens up the contacts app and adds Keith’s name, letting him fill in his information.

He sends himself a text and hands the phone back to Lance, “Don’t text and drive, but I’ll be messaging you while you’re on your way home.”

Lance smiles, “thank you, Keith.”

Keith dips his head and kisses him softly, “you should head out, it’s half passed midnight already.”

Lance pulls away and nods, “yeah, goodbye, Keith. I’ll call you when I have to pump gas?”

“Sounds good to me, have a safe drive.”

Lance thanks him away and Keith shuts the door, letting Lance turns on the car. He plugs his phone in, making sure it stays charged the entire time. He pulls out of the driveway and onto the main road, away from his home.

Now that Lance has his phone turned back on he pulls up the GPS and punches in his address, wanting to find the fastest way home. It’s a seventeen hour journey, but Lance is driving fast, especially since it’s twelve thirty in the morning and only a few other people are on the road, especially as it gets deeper into the night.

Keith sent him a few messages of encouragement after Lance had been on the road for twenty minutes, Lance saw them light up his phone screen, they made him smile, and relax a bit.

Keith must have went to bed after that, because Lance’s phone went silent, no messages from anyone, understandable since it’s well past two am now. Lance turns up the music pretty loud, keeping himself awake as he drives.

As the middle of the night turns into the early day more and more cars are on the road along with Lance. He’s switched out the CD’s in the player a few times already, gone through every Cobra Starship album before he settled on the radio to get some variety in the car.

He noticed earlier that Pidge texted him after he dropped her off at home, he makes sure to remind himself to text her back and save her number next time he’s stopped. 

Around nine in the morning Keith sends him another encouraging text that makes Lance feel warm inside, it takes pressure of his shoulder every time he sees a sweet message like that.

He’s thirty minutes into Alabama when his gas light turns on, getting his attention. He takes the next exit off the highway and pulls into a gas station in Mobile, Alabama. 

He parks in front of a pump and pulls out his phone, quickly saving Pidge’s number and messages her back, telling her that he’s on his way home, and will text her again after he’s settled in with his family.

He sets his phone down and pays for his gas, locking the nozzle into his car before picking up his phone again and calling Keith.

Keith answers after a few rings, “Hey, Lance.”

“Hey Keith, I’ve stopped for gas, wanted to check in, tell you I’m still alive, you know.” Lance leans against his car, watching the pump.

“Oh, that’s good. You’ve been driving for what, ten hours now?”

“Yeah, a little over that. I still have another seven to go, but I’m more than halfway through the drive, so that’s good.”

“Yeah, it is. Have you talked to any of your family?”

Lance sighs, “no, I don’t really want to explain myself over the phone. I did look through the texts, it’s mostly just asking where I am, saying they miss me, asking me to come home, nothing bad happened.”

Keith hums, “makes sense, explaining yourself in person you’ll be better off.”

Lance tucks the phone between his shoulder and ear, taking the pump out of his car, shaking it off in the tank before putting it back in it’s holder and locking his tank, closing the cap.

“Yeah, exactly.” He gets back into his car, shutting the door and turns it back on.

“Well I’m happy you’re safe.” Keith says, making Lance smile.

“Yeah, thanks for the texts by the way, they make me feel a lot better to see them light up my screen while I’m driving.”

“Yeah?” Lance can hear the smile in Keith’s voice. “I’ll keep them coming then, I have to get going now, have to help my dad with the cattle.”

“Say hi to him for me, to your mom too, and give Kaltenecker a kiss for me.”

“I will, goodbye, Lance.”

“Goodbye, Keith.” Lance drops his phone back in the cupholder and relaxes in his seat, talking to Keith made him feel better, and from where he is he only has seven hours to go.

He spends majority of the time singing along to the songs on the radio, after playing the same stations he begins to have the lyrics memorized. He turns the GPS off when he starts nearing home, recognizing the freeway exits as they pass by.

He arrives at his house at six pm, parking outside in the street. He sees both his parents cars in the driveway, everyone should be at the dinner table now, they usually are at this time.

Lance takes a deep, shaky breath and turns off his car. He looks at his phone, picking it up and sending Keith a quick message, saying that he made it home, and will call him whenever he has free time.

Keith texts back immediately, saying he’s happy he’s home safe, and wishing him luck with his family, telling him he’ll do great.

Lance relaxes at that, Keith’s constant words of encouragement make him feel significantly better, calming his nerves down. He places his phone in his back pocket and leaves his car, shutting the door and locking it behind him.

Lance walks up to his front door and unlocks it with his own house key connected on the same keyring as his car keys. He toes out of his shoes and kicks them to the pile by the door before he makes his way to the dining room.

His family is sitting all around the rectangular table together, Veronica and Luis are sitting on one side, sitting next to each other as usual, Lance’s Father is at the head while his mother is is sitting next to him on the other side, across from the twins with Lance’s Abuelita at her side.

His usually seat is empty, as is Marco’s, Lance pushes down the sick feeling he gets when looking at Marco’s empty seat.

His mother looks up when she hears Lance’s footsteps, dropping her fork when she sees her son standing in the doorframe. It clatters, hitting the glass plate, the sound is deafening, everyone in the room has gone silent, each of them looking at Lance in utter shock.

“Hi, Mama.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright Alright now before anyone gets mad at me for leaving the ending so open like that I have a reason. I didn’t want this fic to be about Lance coming home and resolving things with his family, I wanted it to be about his journey getting there. It’s the same reason I didn’t show Pidge having a talk with her own family, as well as not showing Keith having the talk with his family, this fic is about the journey taken to get to where they need to go, not the destination itself.  
> Anyway, there you have it, seven months of my life all dedicated to finishing this fic and now it’s finally all POSTED! I’ve said this a lot but this really has been seven months of my life and I’m so happy I’ve finally posted it and shared it with everyone else.  
> Season Eight is in a little over two months and I’m not ready for it. I have another fic I hope to have posted before then, but no promises it’ll be done by then, that one also has been a long time in the making, but it won’t be nearly as long.  
> If you want any more of my fics you can always check out all the fics I have written already, or subscribe to my AO3 to get email notifications any time I post a new fic.  
> Comment and Kudos please, it’s how I measure my self worth. If you want to talk to me about this or anything else you can find me on [my voltron tumblr Shiroskitten](http://shiroskitten.tumblr.com/)


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